


Out of this World: an Ephraim Camaro Adventure

by VictoriaSkyeMarsters



Category: Original Work
Genre: 90s time period, Gay Robots, Monster Slaying, Multi, Robot Rights, Slow Burn, Space Adventure, abusive ex boyfriends, gender fluid main character, hot aliens, houseplants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:40:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 76,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23820958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaSkyeMarsters/pseuds/VictoriaSkyeMarsters
Summary: Ephraim Camaro is an exterminator. But, uh, not your average exterminator, you see, because she's not killing bugs and rodents as much as she's killing the monsters who've been lurking around her town for the past ten years. Which should be weird enough. But when one of those monsters suddenly starts speaking, (in-between trying to eviscerate her) the truth behind what's really going on in Ephraim's hometown begins to reveal itself. And much to her dismay, that truth ends up involving a bitchy assistant, a master linguist, a houseplant, and the hottest, most obnoxious ass-hat she's ever met.
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know it can be annoying when people post original work on here, but I wrote this story that's not quite good enough to self-publish, yet not bad enough to let collect dust in my computer. It's all finished, it's all ridiculous, and if you want, it's all here for you to read (or will be soon.) I just didn't know what else to do with it, so I'm tossing it into the wind for your viewing pleasure! 
> 
> There are some disturbing themes in this story, but nothing very explicit. The tags might change as I post new chapters, since I've forgotten a lot of my own plot at this point. Please enjoy, and stay safe!

Blossom, Nevada 

There was dust in her hair. In her eyes. In her mouth. It mixed with her sweat and scratched at her skin. She clenched her jaw and felt the grit of sand between her molars. Her shirt clung damply to her back, and she couldn’t say for sure if it was with sweat or blood. Had one of those bastards gotten a swipe in before she’d hacked it to pieces? She hadn’t thought so, but it wouldn’t be the first time a monster had gotten a taste of her, and experience said it wouldn’t be the last. Still, she couldn’t check just now. She knew the dwellers behind her were dead, just like she knew the ones in front of her weren’t. With a swipe of her hatchet, she cursed the lady upstairs, who’d failed to mention the sheer volume of “pests” invading her basement. 

She had peered at Ephraim over her half-moon frames and completely skipped over the fact that, besides the main baddie, an entire, pulsing egg sac was trapped down in her dirt-floor, makeshift wine cellar. It had just been waiting for an unsuspecting Ephraim to come investigating before the sinewy sac broke apart and dumped an entire litter of shiny white creatures with too many razor-edged legs to count, and scaly vertebrae that formed a difficult to hack shell. And, because the razor legs and shield-of-armor-skin wasn’t already enough, they also had teeth longer than her forearm and definitely longer than the reach of her hatchet, which, upon reassessment, was not the wisest weapon choice for this particular job. 

If only she’d known there would be a dozen instead of one. She cursed her client again as she rushed toward the remaining three monsters, her cry competing with the skittering of horrible legs and growls of monstrous throats. She’d killed this kind before, but never so many at once. And she’d never had to get close enough to feel their scaly skin slide against her own before either. As mentioned, her hatchet was a bad choice. If it had been the single creature, as she’d been led to believe (thanks, lady), then she could have done it, had done it in the past. They weren’t the smartest things, and they were, according to her scanty research, nocturnal. But everyone’s schedule changes when babies are born. 

So instead of sneaking in and slicing one terrifying, impossible monster down the fleshy underside of its abdomen, she’d been surrounded, pressed in on all sides by white, nearly translucent, totally revolting monsters. And though all but three were now dead (and scattered in bloody pieces all over the wine cellar), there were three remaining, and the damn things weren’t letting Ephraim anywhere near their soft bellies. It would be like trying to fight a giant turtle, if only the giant turtle had basilisk teeth and saws for arms—and had a bazillion arms.

But Ephraim had not lived to be twenty-five by losing fights with monster turtles, even if all she had was a hatchet. 

She rolled, dodging a razory leg flung in her direction, and ended up with even more dust all over. 

“Everything okay down there?” hollered her client from the door at the top steps of the cellar, which Ephraim had explicitly told her to keep shut. (“And if I don’t come back up in twenty minutes, don’t open it. Torch the whole house,” she’d warned.) Ephraim would have rolled her eyes if she wasn’t currently throwing herself backwards into a rack of vintage reds in order to escape another sharp swing of a monster’s leg. When she sliced it off with a scream and a hack of her hatchet, she heard the woman gasp dramatically and slam the door. 

She vaguely hoped her client would resist setting the house on fire for a few more minutes. Ephraim would hate if the rumor got out that she couldn’t finish a job. Finishing jobs was the only thing she knew how to do properly. Everything else was beyond her. Just the other day, in fact, her ridiculous assistant had composed an entire, insulting list, all about the multitude of adult things Ephraim sucked at. 

Things Ephie Sucks At:  
A List by her Beautiful Assistant, Lav  
1\. Paying the electric bill (I am writing in the dark right now, like an animal)  
2\. Paying the phone bill (Am I supposed to order takeout by smoke signal?)  
3\. Driving (You are a human adult and the bicycle is not cute anymore)  
4\. Stitching wounds (No Comment. See: Mirror)   
5\. Presenting her best self to the world (This is an umbrella list item for all things appearance, including: bottle blonde hair that isn’t fooling anyone; mild but persistent acne that is not being properly masked by a lazy beauty routine; stubby, chipped nails; a wardrobe provided almost exclusively from Goodwill. I will take you shopping if you ask, but you have to ask NICELY.)  
6\. Giving her faithful employee a much deserved raise for working in the dark half the time (see list item #1)  
7\. Conversing with humans and/or other inhabitants of Earth   
8\. Dating humans and/or other inhabitants of Earth (insert “Ephie Sucks” joke here, or more appropriately, “Ephie doesn’t suck”)  
9\. I’m tired of making this list, but I’m tacking it up on your door anyway, to remind you to pay the electric and the phone, and also to pick a new concealer at the drugstore next time you ride your bicycle there.  
10\. Seriously, about that raise…

Ephraim had chucked the list at Lav’s perfectly coiffed head, which was disappointing, because she’d meant to hit her between the eyes, hoping to knock off the stupid designer sunglasses that were permanently attached to her face. 

“Maybe if you took your sunglasses off, you’d be able to see better,” she had snarled before slamming her door, tucking herself away from a fuming, indignant Lav. “It is the evening, and you are indoors!” she’d added, calling rudely through the door, because the list was accurate, especially item #7. 

But Lav was devoted to her fashion choices, which always included shades placed over her undoubtedly beautiful eyes. Ephraim had never seen them—she could only assume, based on everything else about her assistant, that they were beautiful. She could have made a list of beautiful things about Lav, but Lav had already made one (which she kept pinned up at her desk). And besides, Ephraim would never stoop to paying her a compliment. She probably got enough of those every day by merely breathing. Ephraim liked to think she was doing the world a favor by balancing out all the love sent in Lav’s direction, providing daily doses of “Shut up, Lav, and get to work.”

Later, she suspected, she would prove list item #4 more intensively, as the dampness coating her back was spreading, and she was rapidly growing convinced that it was indeed blood and not sweat that made her t-shirt cling to her skin like wet tissue paper. 

Back wounds were the worst, because how could she possibly stitch them up by herself? Injuries like these required the assistance of her assistant, and Lav was intolerable at the best of times, and inhumanly obnoxious at medical times. But when Ephraim was forced to go under the needle and thread, Lav wielded it with curious expertise. 

Ephraim would need that expertise if she ever got out of this cellar, which she was keen on doing any time now. She just had to jab left, roll right, stab forward, yell through clenched teeth as another razor arm grazed her shoulder, kick one giant turtle to its back, plunge in the edge of her hatchet, duck to avoid its angry turtle brethren, grab a wine bottle because her hatchet got stuck in the belly of a beast, use the wine bottle as a makeshift club, smash and stab, smash and stab, nearly throw up when thrown into the bloody carcass of a previously slain monster, retrieve hatchet a la Sword in the Stone, gut one of the remaining monsters because she had had enough, cut off the head of the other (which took multiple hacks of her hatchet, and she was so retiring this weapon when she got home), and then she was done. The job was done.

She knelt in monster gunk, her breath ragged and her hair stuck to her face with sweat and blood, monster and human alike. She let the hatchet fall from her hands and massaged the ache from her palm, which she’d earned from gripping the handle too tightly. As she usually did after a finished job, she remained still for a few moments—except for the shaking, as she remembered, however briefly, that first night so long ago. Ten years, and it always came back to her. 

She knelt until the smell of death clogged her nose and the trail of sweat (and blood) dripped from her back and into the crevice of her jeans. Only then did she find the strength to shake her bad memories and stand to assess the carnage. There were white limbs everywhere, and blood everywhere else. It would be a pain to clean. But cleaning up wasn’t part of her job. With a smirk, she picked an unbroken bottle of vintage from an un-toppled rack and climbed the cellar stairs. 

Disgruntled Client was waiting for her knock on the other side of the door, and upon hearing Ephraim’s rasp of “All clear,” she opened up. She had a book of matches in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, as if she’d been uncertain whether she should offer refreshments to any escaping fiends or offer to light a cigarette for them. For Ephraim, she offered nothing but a disgusted once-over, which probably had more to do with the smell than Ephraim’s usual look of “Don’t try and talk to me.”

“I’m taking this wine,” Ephraim declared, holding up the bottle. 

The woman squinted at the blood-splattered label and had the gall to look more horrified by Ephraim’s selection than by the prospect of monsters in her cellar. “That’s a very expensive bottle, dear,” she said. 

“I know. I picked the best one that wasn’t smashed. It hardly covers the extra cash you owe me for your infestation, but it’ll do for now, until you can pay me the rest.”

“But I have your money right here,” she replied, pulling an envelope from the deep pocket of her housecoat. “We already agreed on the amount.”

“That’s before I knew there was an entire family down there waiting to carve me up.” Ephraim hissed when her shirt rubbed against her back; she was growing more and more convinced it was shredded—her skin and the shirt. “So I’m taking your fancy wine, and you can consider this”—she snatched the envelope out of her hand—“your first payment. I’ll be back for double that in a week.”

“Double?”

“Yeah, double,” she grated as she limped for the screen door. “I should be charging you twelve times that, since there were twelve more dwellers than we agreed on. Be happy with your double. And with this.” She squinted at the label. It was Italian something-or-other. She was accustomed to eight-dollar wines, but she would relish in the expensive booze tonight, while she suffered under the ministrations of Lav’s first-aid kit. 

Her ungrateful client bitched under her breath about “youths of today,” and Ephraim bit her tongue to keep from arguing how she was hardly a youth. She’d stopped being a youth on the night that continued to haunt her in every nightmare and after every kill. At fifteen, her youth had been stripped away, corroded by blood, until there was nothing left but who she was now: the kind of person who wasn’t cowed by greedy women trying to rip her off and not pay her what she’s owed.

“A week,” she said, and then let the screen door slam shut behind her. 

Even at night, it was hot this time of year. A dry, dusty heat, with a warm wind that blew grit into her eyes. The dark sky rumbled, lighting up with the threat of a distant storm. She hurried to her bicycle, where she’d left it leaned against the brick of the house, and was grateful to be alone, if only so no one could hear her series of pained curses as she finagled the wine bottle into her backpack and mounted the rickety bike. 

It wasn’t a long trip back to the nearly abandoned strip mall, the one that used to boast a Blockbuster, Subway, and Super Fresh. Light only came from a single window shop now, right in the middle of the strip. She cycled up to it, hardly sweating but definitely bleeding. The little sign on the little door was written in chipped red paint: Camaro Exterminations. Lav had told her repeatedly that it was a stupid name. That it sounded as if they were in the business of eradicating sports cars. But Camaro was Ephraim’s last name, and she was stalwart in her protection of it. Her father would have been pleased to see the family name written in chipped red paint on a strip mall door, though he might have been less thrilled with his offspring’s chosen career: the extermination of dwellers, and not nice cars. But in a town like Blossom, there were rather more of the former than the latter. 

Dwellers. She’d started calling them that years ago, when more often than not, they started showing up in people’s basements, or holed up in sheds, or swimming pools, or attics. Where they’d first been seen out in the relative openness of the desert town, they were more frequently, these days, found near people, and they were always aggressive, always dangerous. They were what she exterminated, and she’d seen many forms of the creatures—the monsters—during her decade of diligence in their destruction.

The door jingled when it opened, because Lav had insisted on putting up that damn bell when she’d started working there a few years ago. Ephraim didn’t see the point, since it was only a one room office, with a room in the back that was not for customers or anyone else—Ephraim’s room. The rule was, if she was in there, she didn’t care if the bell rang. She was either on duty or she wasn’t. It wasn’t good customer service, but that was why she’d hired Lav to begin with. She didn’t want to talk to people about their problems; she only wanted to kill dwellers. So Lav talked and Ephraim listened, and then Ephraim chose a weapon from her weapons chest and she killed. Exterminated. Just like He had taught her. 

Lav was inside, talking to the green plant on her desk that she insisted on calling “Harry” for reasons unknown. She was wearing her sunglasses, as usual, but her body language was coiled and tense. She tapped long, hot pink acrylic nails against her second-hand desk and looked up as Ephraim entered. Her hair was stuffed beneath a chic, black, pageboy wig, and her matching black lipstick made the snarl of her lip much more intimidating than it should have been. 

“Oh, it’s you,” she snapped, her consonants oddly longer than her vowels as she spoke in her strange, clipped, flouncy accent of mysterious origin that always boggled Ephraim’s mind. She’d asked once where her assistant was from, and was rebuffed with a hoity-toity, “Far from this landfill,” and Ephraim couldn’t argue with that. 

Blossom, Nevada was a rural, backwards town some forty miles south of Las Vegas, and it had more dwellers than blossoms. For whatever reason, the monsters were attracted to the area, and though she was hardly a woman of the world, she had never heard tale of similar creatures anywhere else. Surely such a thing would have attracted attention, and in the beginning, she’d thought Blossom would be swarming with press, folks trying to get pictures and videos of the monsters. But the attention never came. It was weird, but either no one ever spoke of the strange dwellers in their small town, or they were all in denial they existed in the first place. We have monsters, no one said but everyone seemed to know. When they asked for Ephraim’s help, they asked for an extermination in a series of non-specifics. “It’s got more than eight legs,” they’d say, or, “Got a half dozen in the garage. Like worms, but, you know, bigger.”

Ephraim closed the office door and refrained from her usual lean against the window, on account of the bloody mess on her back. “Oh, it’s me,” she said. Her own voice scraped where Lav’s was smooth, and she couldn’t blame it on cigarettes because she’d quit last New Year’s, and she couldn’t blame it on hard liquor, because she’d never had the stomach for it. She remembered the wine in her pack and placed it in the middle of Lav’s desk. 

“Watch out for Harry!” Lav snipped.

“I’ll share if you fix my back without giving me grief.”

“Eww.” Lav’s delicate nose twitched. “You stink. What is that?”

“Blood,” Ephraim explained, turning to show off her back. “And monster innards.”

“You need to take a shower and change out of those clothes before I come anywhere near you. You smell minutes away from infection.”

“You can’t smell that.”

“Care to make a wager?” Lav arched a perfectly tweezed eyebrow that rose above the uppermost frame of her shades. She was always coaxing Ephraim into wagers, must have been out-of-her-mind bored working in a monster exterminating office, which she showed nothing but disdain for. But she continued to work there, and Ephraim didn’t ask why. She didn’t want to open that door of communication, of sharing and comradery. Friendship. “If you die in three days from a blood fever, I get your … oh, wait … there’s absolutely nothing of yours I want.” 

That’s usually how the wagers ended. With insults. 

“I’ll go shower,” Ephraim conceded. “It’s not like it’s a hardship. I don’t actually want to be covered in gore.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Lav replied. She tenderly stroked the leaves of her plant, and Ephraim couldn’t tell exactly where she was looking—because of the stupid sunglasses—but she thought she might have been glaring at her. “I’ll get my med kit and open this bottle. You do something about all of that.” She gestured in disgust at Ephraim. 

“Fine,” said Ephraim, and as she headed back into her room, she heard a reminder of, “Scrub thoroughly!”

The backroom—her room—was smaller than the office, only big enough for a single bed and a couch, some bookshelves, a dresser. And her weapons chest, of course. That’s where she trudged first, unhooking the hatchet from her belt and wiping it down with a cleaning cloth before placing it inside, next to other pointy, slicey weaponry, as well as a single pistol she never used. 

Her boots got kicked off next, and she stepped out of the rest of her soiled clothing on the way to her bathroom—which Lav used often enough that it always had a bowl of potpourri over the toilet and expensive hand soap at the sink. The mirror was old and cracked and did her reflection no favors. She stripped the rest of the way out of her bra and underwear and leaned forward to check on the bloody scrape across her brow. It wasn’t deep, but would probably scar anyway. It would be in good company, for she had scars all over, some hardly there, some dark and grisly—but the bad ones were, thankfully, not on her face. She twisted, trying to look at her back. It was bloody, sticky and scabbing already, and she turned on the faucet, eager to get clean, to get the blood of dwellers off her skin. 

The pressure was bad, but the water was hot as she stepped into the shower stall. She braced herself and turned so her back was hit by the stream. It hurt, made her eyes water, but she forced herself to stay in place for a count of sixty. The water swirled pink and brown down the drain. 

When she returned to the office ten minutes later, dressed in sweatpants and a tank top with a low scoop back—so Lav wouldn’t have to rip off her shirt to tend her wound—her hair was still dripping wet, her old mascara was smudged around her eyes, and Lav was sitting at her desk with three glasses of wine and her med kit. Three glasses, because there was someone else in the room, someone new. 

Ephraim stared at the uninvited kid sitting in her appointed rolly-roundy chair. And he was a kid, no doubt about it, despite his long, gangly limbs dressed in an off-the-rack suit and tie. He had cherub-esque curls that swept across his forehead, and his eyes were large and swathed with bold, black lashes that blinked stupidly back at Ephraim the longer she stared. 

Lav wasn’t oblivious to her discomfort at having a stranger in her office, she just didn’t care. She passed the kid a glass of wine—which he certainly wasn’t old enough to drink—and then sipped gingerly at her own. She knew better than to offer Ephraim hers yet, not when her fists were clenched tighter than her jaw. 

Lav’s black-painted lips spoke softly around her careful sip. “Noltan is looking for a job,” she said. “I told him you could use the help.”

He was staring straight into her eyes, which were sharper than she’d given credit only a moment before. There was a calculating shine swirling around those bright green irises, of which she was instantly wary. 

“Is that right?” she asked, and then, to humor everyone but herself, she continued with the rudimentary inquiries. “Are you passionate about extermination?”

He replied gravely: “Sure.”

“Are you even old enough to have a work permit? What are you? Fourteen?”

“I’m eighteen.” He straightened his shoulders, aiming to make himself look taller, but only succeeding in making himself look ganglier, like he had a ways to go before he fit properly in his body. 

She smirked at the obvious lie. “What makes you think we’re hiring? Did you see a sign in the window? Read an ad in the paper?”

“No. Nothing like that. I know you’re not looking for someone like me.”

“Then what are you doing here, uninvited and after hours?” 

He set his glass down and stood. He was tall, but still seemed small somehow, smaller than Ephraim as she squared up to him. He ignored her antagonizing body language, straightened his tie, and blustered onward in a speech he had probably memorized. “I need a job, ma’am, and after searching all over Blossom, I decided working for Camaro Exterminations was the superior option. I have no experience with, um, exterminations themselves, but I’m a quick learner and eager to learn.”

As Ephraim appraised him, she wondered whether this kid knew what he was saying when he talked about extermination. Was he aware, like the other citizens of Blossom, that she wasn’t in the business of killing roaches and spiders? That her infestations were far more dangerous and required far more than an “eager to learn” attitude? 

Sensing her trepidation, he continued before she could speak. “I’m good with computers. When I’m not helping you in the field, I could be here in the office, working on your business website. I noticed that you don’t have one, and well, no offense, but you should. The internet is…sort of a thing.”

Lav snorted into her wine. 

But Noltan wasn’t done. “And languages!” he exclaimed. “I know it’s in poor taste to brag, but I’m sort of a savant with languages. I pick them up faster than anyone. I only need to hear a few spoken lines of a new language, and I can understand. Within minutes of exposure, I become fluent.” 

“First of all, that’s impossible,” Ephraim said. But before she could get to her “second of all,” Lav was swiveling around in her chair, legs crossed, wine swirling in her glass. 

“Prove it,” she demanded, and a flow of strange words tumbled off her tongue, fast and flowery. 

Ephraim had never heard her speak in her native tongue before, hadn’t even been sure she had a native tongue. It seemed entirely plausible her accent was made up to match her aesthetic. But this wasn’t a fake language, nor did it sound like anything Ephraim had ever heard. She rattled on and on, for what must have been a full minute, and all the while, Ephraim and Noltan watched her, Noltan leaning against the desk and absently touching one of Harry’s leaves as he listened. 

Finally, Lav stopped and took another sip of her wine, then she cocked her head to the side and looked up at Noltan with a curious, sun-shaded gaze. “Well?”

Ephraim was sure the kid was about to turn on his heel and flee the office with tears in his eyes. Because there was no way—no way—he was about to do what he claimed he could do. There was no way he could open his mouth, as he was now doing, and ….

He spoke, his words stunted at first, but in the same flowery language Lav had just chattered in. He only said a short sentence, his words lilting at the end, in a question. 

A bright bout of laughter burst from Lav and she clapped her hands together, her bangle bracelets clanking noisily. She responded, speaking slower this time, appearing to answer his question and ask one of her own, waving her hand when she was through and bidding him to answer. She looked delighted, to a sickening degree. 

Noltan spoke again, his pace quicker and inciting an even broader smile from Lav, and after a few more stilted exchanges, they began a verbal volley that she couldn’t begin to keep up with. Noltan began spouting out sentences as long as Lav’s, his mouth forming seamlessly around vowels Ephraim could hardly even hope to repeat. 

“I can’t believe it!” Lav cried after another flawless response from Noltan. “I haven’t spoken my own language in years! Ephie, did you hear?”

Ephraim grimaced at the nickname and rubbed at her temples. “Yes, I heard. But I don’t know how being good at languages is going to be any use in an extermination business. Sorry, kid. We’re not hiring.”

He was crestfallen, and so was Lav, but that wasn’t Ephraim’s fault. Noltan had no business hanging around her office, not when her line of work was so dangerous, not when he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. She didn’t need a rookie to kill dwellers with, she didn’t need a website, and she didn’t need a damn interpreter. 

She led Noltan to the door, and almost apologized for turning him down, but refrained in the end, because she wasn’t particularly sorry. It was presumptuous of him to barge in on her down time and demand work for a job he wasn’t qualified for. It was rude, even, which helped her maintain the grimace on her face when she shut the door in his and pulled down the blinds to hide his big, sad eyes. 

“Don’t let him in again,” she scathed, pointing an accusatory finger at Lav. “He’s a child.”

“Older than you when you started exterminating, I bet,” snipped Lav as she opened up her med kit and summoned her with the crook of her finger. 

“He was lying about his age,” Ephraim replied. She’d forgotten about the gash on her back that needed stitching and frowned at the needle in Lav’s hand. 

“Still older than you,” her assistant remarked. 

And Ephraim couldn’t remember telling Lav how old she’d been when it happened, or how long she’d been killing dwellers, but she wasn’t surprised Lav knew, as nosy as she was, as flirtatious as she was with Blossom’s bachelors and bachelorettes, as good as she was at coaxing gossip from them. 

“I didn’t even want to hire you, okay?” Ephraim said, plopping down on the rolly chair and spinning so Lav could get to her back. “I don’t need someone else hanging around here, being friendly and useless.”

“Well, excuse me,” Lav said. “I’ll try to be less of both from now on, if it bothers you so much.” 

The antiseptic burned when she poured it over Ephraim’s open wound without warning. Ephraim closed her stinging eyes, but refused to voice her discomfort, even as Lav threaded the needle and pierced it through her tender, inflamed skin. 

Lav laughed and began stitching her up, only stopping once to finish her wine. Ephraim finished hers, too, as well as Noltan’s untouched glass. 

She wasn’t worried about him. A kid like that, smart as he was, would have no trouble finding work someplace else, anywhere else. She didn’t feel bad. She wasn’t a babysitter, not even close. She was an exterminator, and things were just better for everyone when she was left alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of child abuse in this chapter.

Noltan came back. He was there when she left her room the next morning. She’d slept poorly again, on her stomach, since her back was stitched and painful. She’d woken grumpily, dressed grumpily, and was looking forward to grumpily drinking a giant cup of coffee, and that’s when she saw him. The little bell above the door jingled as it let in Lav and, behind her, Noltan, balancing a box of donuts in one hand and a cardboard coffee holder in the other. They were laughing together and snickering something in their newly shared language, like they were best friends. 

It did not improve Ephraim’s grumpiness. 

“What are you doing here?” she asked, hardly in the mood for niceties—as if she ever was. “I told you, I’m not hiring.”

Lav gave her head a quick shake, which Ephraim had come to equate with an eye roll; it was impossible to see if she was actually rolling her eyes because of her dark-tinted glasses. They rested on the bridge of her nose, the frames lime green today, to match her nails and complement the neon pink of her lipstick. She’d ditched the black pageboy wig for an asymmetrical, shoulder-length bob, the blunt platinum ends grazing her bare shoulders. Her tube top wasn’t work appropriate, but neither was Ephraim’s outfit—though their impropriety lived on opposite sides of the work appropriate scale. Lav was hardly dressed, but her clothes were high-end, label-queen labels, so she still looked presentable, in a klassy kind of way. Contrarily, Ephraim had trudged out of her room in her everyday pants and a tank she’d worn last week but hadn’t gotten all that dirty, so she was wearing it again without washing it. Her hair was unbrushed and had dried awkwardly from sleeping after a shower. She was—

“Such a mess,” Lav tutted, plucking a pink frosted donut from the box and taking a seat at her desk. 

Ephraim ignored her, but didn’t ignore the coffee Noltan pressed into her hands. The offering didn’t stop her from glaring at him, but it did prevent her from having to wait for the old coffee maker in the office to chug out her caffeine fix. She didn’t say thank you, just accepted the drink, walked to the front door, and arched her brow at the kid who could understand any language, but somehow couldn’t follow her simple directions of “Get out.”

“You don’t have to pay me much,” he said, even as he handed over the donut box to Lav and started for the door. “I’d say I’d be happy to work for free, but I wouldn’t. I sort of need the money. And I need to work here. It’s this or the grocery store.”

“You’d make a swell bag boy,” said Ephraim, giving Noltan the tiny push it took to get him out of the office and onto the hot sidewalk of the strip mall. “But as you can see, we don’t need anything bagged here.”

“How about your face?” Lav laughed around a mouthful of donut. 

“You,” said Ephraim, pointing a finger at her assistant, “shut up.” Then she turned to Noltan. “You, get out. And don’t come back.”

He left.

But he came back again. 

The very next day, he showed up with a bag of bagels and a backpack, from which he pulled out a laptop computer and commenced to set it up in a small work space at the edge of Lav’s desk. She’d cleared room for him and everything. Had even moved Harry from his usual corner to a different corner. This had never been done before, and the sight of the moved plant had Ephraim more disgruntled than the sight of the uninvited kid tapping away at his keyboard. 

He click-click-clickity-clicked even in the face of her fiercest glare—which, admittedly, may have been less severe than usual because of the bagel she was stuffing into her mouth. 

“Good morning, Ms. Camaro,” he greeted cheerily. 

She grunted and chewed, peering over his shoulder at the screen. She would have demanded to know what he was working on at once, because she could see her name written clearly in bold font, but any words would be starchily garbled until she swallowed. Lav, lovely assistant that she was, volunteered an answer before being posed the question. She was sitting elbow to elbow with Noltan, and looked to be—though it was impossible and Ephraim must have been hallucinating from sheer annoyance—feeding a bit of bagel to the plant. 

“Noltan is creating a website for Camaro Exterminations,” she said, her white smile made all the whiter by the day’s bold red lip. She brushed a few crumbs off the dress that matched and patted the kid merrily. Her shades today were big, Hollywood cat-eyes. With rhinestones.

“She doesn’t look excited about it,” Noltan deemed, still clickity-clicking, but sparing Ephraim a cursory glance. “You know, Ms. Camaro, a website will bring you so much more clientele.”

She grunted. 

Noltan frowned. Click-click-CLICK. “Don’t you want more clients? Wouldn’t that be good for business?”

She fought to swallow her bite of bagel before Lav could answer for her, but she was too late. Far too late. 

Lav swiveled delightfully in her swivel chair, long legs crossed elegantly at the ankles, shoes off to wave around her newly pedicured toes. It was almost disgusting how well-groomed she always was. “Ms. Camaro can’t be bothered with things like good business, Noltan,” she crooned. “This hovel would stay up and running whether another soul ever walked through that front door. She’s sitting on a dragon’s hoard of inheritance. Technically, she doesn’t have to work another day in her life.”

“You’re that rich?” Noltan asked, his eyes bugging and his fingers pausing over his computer keys. 

Lav cackled at his side, bumping his elbow. “You can’t tell by looking at her, can you? It took me months to figure it out when I first started working here. Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of her once you’ve been here longer.”

“Lav!” Ephraim shouted, having finally conquered her mouthful—though she was already thinking about her next one. “Stop telling him he has a job here.” She looked plainly at Noltan. “You do not have a job here.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hands up in defeat. Though as soon as Ephraim turned her back, she heard an assault of CLICK-CLICK-CLICK in her ears. 

She grabbed another bagel and went back to her room, letting the door slam. Immature, yes, but she never claimed to be mature. She was rich, immature, bitchy, and had walls so thin, she could still hear the mad-typing of the kid’s keyboard. “I want him gone tomorrow!” she called before chomping down on the bagel. 

She heard muffled laughter, followed by a, “You got it, boss!”

When he returned the next day, he brought her a croissant, along with a sugary coffee. She stormed from the back room, prepared to physically remove Noltan from the premises, but Lav was stepping in front of her before she could reach him. “He’s done with the website,” she said. “You should take a look.”

“I don’t want to take a look. I don’t want a website! It won’t do anything for this kind of business. He doesn’t understand.”

Ring-ring-ring. 

Ephraim froze, as did Lav, and they both turned to peer at the turquoise landline on the desk beside Harry. 

“The phone is ringing,” Ephraim stated.

“It never rings,” Lav said, equally disturbed. 

Ring-ring-ring. 

“People usually just walk in and ask for help,” continued Lav, walking closer to the phone, inspecting it with a curious tilt of her head—which today was topped with a lava-red wig that made her look like a demented, slutty Ariel. 

Noltan watched them both. He’d stopped his attempt at typing completely. “Are you going to answer?”

Ring-ring-ring.

Ephraim nudged Lav. “Answer it.”

“Me?” But she only hesitated a moment longer before picking up the phone and holding it to her ear. Her giant, silver hoops clinked softly against receiver. “Camaro Exterminations. How may I help you?” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly at Ephraim, then hurried for a pen. “Uh huh,” she mumbled. “Mhmm. Oh? Oh. Uh huh.” She scribbled on the pad of paper on her desk that had formerly only been filled with pretty squiggles and doodles. Her sweeping, showy hand spanned across a rather well done pencil sketch of Harry, and Ephraim squinted over Lav’s shoulder to read it. 

Lav hip-checked her as she continued on the phone. There were creases forming around her mouth, twitching, like she was on the verge of a frown but couldn’t quite figure out how to complete the expression. “Let me check her schedule.” She pulled the phone away from her face, cupping the receiver with the palm of her hand. 

Ephraim rolled her eyes as they waited the time it would have taken for an assistant to check a full schedule. Of course, Ephraim’s schedule was free all week. And the week after that. 

“You’re in luck,” said Lav after a few more moments of suspense. “She’s just had a cancellation and can fit you in today. Can I ask you a few things about your infestation?”

As Lav ran through the checklist of questions Ephraim required for a job, Noltan crossed his arms and swiveled confidently in his chair. He tilted the screen of his laptop so she could see it. The home screen had a loud, red backdrop. The letters of her business were written in that same bold font that matched the lettering on the front door. Among other things, like a picture of her she had no idea how he’d gotten his hands on, and a creatively stated summary of what she did (without actually saying what she did), there was an address, along with a phone number to call. 

She glared at him, and he smiled sweetly, directing a know-it-all thumb towards Lav, who was wrapping up her call. 

“She’ll be out there in an hour. Thank you. Have a good day.” Lav hung up. She was opening her mouth to say something—something super annoying, probably—when the phone rang again. 

They all stared at it in disbelief. Slowly, Lav picked it up. Suspiciously, she said, “Camaro Exterminations. How may I help you?” Her grin split wide. “An infestation? Really? Oh, you liked the website, did you?” She flicked Ephraim off with a glitter-purple nail. “Tell me more.”

Ephraim sighed, grabbed Noltan by the collar of his shirt, and hauled him towards the front door. “Fine. The website was a good idea. Obviously,” she said quietly, so as not to disturb Lav’s phone call. “You’re not an idiot. Congratulations.”

Noltan’s cheeks pinked. 

“But that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t have you hanging around here,” she continued. And this time, she almost felt bad about saying it. “The extermination business is dangerous.”

“But I’d be behind a computer screen,” he insisted. 

“You’d be involved, nonetheless.”

He snorted at her. Snorted. “You think you own the monopoly on danger in this town,” he said softly. “You don’t.” He strode past her, collected his laptop, accepted a fist bump from Lav, and returned to the front door, where Ephraim was waiting for him with the door held open. “You need me,” he said. 

“Bold words for a baby,” she replied. “Go bag some groceries, kid, and stay out of my business.”

He moved to walk past her, and she grabbed his arm. He watched her with raised eyebrows as she dug around in her back pocket. His eyes rounded when she pulled out her wallet and removed from its folds two crisp fifty-dollar bills. She handed them over and then shoved him out the door. 

“For the website,” she explained before closing the door in his face. 

Lav was petting one of Harry’s leaves when she turned around, her back pressing against the glass door. She winced—her stitches were still tender—and pulled away, walking to the desk. Lav finished up her second call and fixed Ephraim with a judgmental head-cock. 

“Two requests for exterminations in as many minutes, after a drought of business,” she said, pointedly tapping at the turquoise phone. 

“There’s been no drought,” Ephraim argued. She was being too defensive, she was well aware. “I killed those dwellers in the wine cellar, like, two days ago.”

“Which was your first job in two weeks,” Lav replied. “Which is probably why you rushed out of here to deal with a dweller horde with nothing but a useless hatchet and got yourself nearly sliced in half.”

“That is a gross exaggeration,” said Ephraim, wishing she could scratch at her wounded back. The stitches were tender, but they were also itchy. She sighed. “But I see your point. A little.”

Lav tapped the phone again. “That kid’s gonna be good for business.”

“That kid’s gonna get himself killed. And the death of minors is seldom good for business.”

“You’re such a bitch,” Lav muttered, and was saved from Ephraim’s wrath when the phone rang yet again. “The directions of the new jobs are written here,” she said quickly. She pushed her notepad across the desk, where she’d written two addresses, both in Blossom and not far from the office. “Dwellers in a park pond,” she whispered. “And more in someone’s garage. Try not to get eviscerated.” She picked up the phone, already used to speaking in her new, customer-friendly tone. “Camaro Exterminations. How may I help you?”

Ephraim slept late the next morning, since the two jobs had eventually increased to three, and each one had been a row to remember. She’d stumbled home at midnight, still covered in dweller gunk from the third job, which had been a monster with too many eyes. She’d ripped her stitches, and since Lav had already gone home—wherever that was—she was forced to twist awkwardly in her bathroom mirror, ass propped up on the sink, and try to reach it with a poorly controlled waterfall of hydrogen peroxide. It had bubbled white over the fresh blood and made her eyes water. 

When she woke the next day, it was with pillow creases deep in her cheek and a killer headache. She stumbled into the office with the med kit in her hand, only bothering to pull on pajamas because she knew Noltan would be there, and she didn’t want to give the poor kid an eyeful. 

Only, he wasn’t there. 

Lav was leaned back in her chair, black stilettos propped on the desk, a prop cigarette hanging from her nude-lipsticked mouth. Her sunglasses were round and white-rimmed. She was twisting the curly phone cord in her fingers, but stopped as soon as Ephraim entered, turning a head full of ginger pin-curls in her direction. 

“You look like hell,” she said, which was only the truth.

“Where is he?” Ephraim asked, eyes scanning the office suspiciously. His laptop wasn’t open on Lav’s desk, nor was there a box of fresh pastries anywhere in sight. 

“Who?” asked Lav. “Oh, that kid you kept telling to fuck off? I guess he fucked off. Duh.”

“I didn’t tell him to fuck off,” she defended. “Not in those words exactly. So he’s not here?”

“Unless he’s hiding up my skirt, no.” And judging by the length of her skirt, there wasn’t any room for Noltan. 

Ephraim sighed in relief. Or she thought it was relief, until she sighed again a few minutes later while trying to run a brush through her hair—at Lav’s insistence—and that second sigh wasn’t one of relief; it was an anxiety-fueled rush of exhalation that had her eyes darting over the empty chair she’d already started thinking of as Noltan’s. She’d hoped he’d not return, for his own safety, and because he was annoying, but now that he wasn’t here…

“Something’s not right,” she whispered. And then, louder, when she realized Lav was dutifully ignoring her: “Something’s wrong.”

“Your roots? I know.” Lav’s nose crinkled. 

“Maybe he’ll come in later,” Ephraim reasoned aloud. 

“Yeah, and maybe you’ll give me a raise.”

The phone rang on and off all day, and Ephraim left the office twice to kill dwellers. It was a dusty, hot afternoon, and by the end of it, she was covered in grit and reeked of sunblock, and though she’d avoided any more monster claw swipes, she still needed first aid when she returned to the office. She grabbed the med kit, plopped down in a chair, and started pulling tiny pieces of gravel out of her skinned knees with a pair of tweezers. 

“That’s what I get for wearing shorts on a job,” she groused. 

“That’s what you get for wearing those shorts at all,” Lav remarked. She sucked on her cigarette, which was ridiculous, because it wasn’t even real. 

“Is that a candy cigarette?” Ephraim asked as she freed an especially jagged piece of gravel from her skin. “You’re so weird.”

“You’re weird,” was Lav’s retort. “Did you finish the playground job?”

“Finished it on my knees, but still finished it.” When all the gravel was out, Ephraim doused her skinned knees with hydrogen peroxide, smothered the broken skin with Neosporin, and made a note to herself that shorts were for normal people who didn’t kill monsters for a living. 

“Before you ask, no,” said Lav. “He never showed up today. You’ve officially killed his spirit. Congratulations on being a terrible person.”

“Do I get a certificate?” Ephraim asked, but she was really wondering, “Where the hell is he?” So, a few minutes later, after disappearing into her room to change into loose-fitted pants and a Backstreet Boys t-shirt she had no recollection of buying, she emerged with an urgently stated question. “Do you have the address?”

“Whose address?” asked Lav. “The Backstreet Boys?” She pursed her lips. “I don’t think they all live together. Do they?”

“Not the Backstreet Boys, Lav,” Ephraim sighed—this sigh just as anxious as the last. “Noltan’s address. Do you know it?”

“I know a lot. Like how to dress myself. Shall I teach you?”

“His address. Jesus Christ!”

“Little Noltan lives on Cottage Oak Lane!” Lav answered (shouting back just to be annoying). “Even though there are mobile homes instead of cottages and tumbleweeds instead of oak trees.” She chewed on the end of her candy cigarette. “And it’s less of a lane and more of a—”

“Yes, I get it,” Ephraim snapped. 

“You can reach it on your bicycle,” Lav continued. “But pump your tires first. The lane isn’t paved in gold, just potholes.”

Ephraim didn’t pump her tires, but she did throw her hair up in a ponytail, because it was brutally hot, and she did stop at the Taco Bell on the ride over to get a water bottle and dirty looks from the guy working the counter when that’s all she bought. So, in a rare act of altruism—and guilt—she also ordered an apple empanada, so she’d have something to give to Noltan when she found him. He’d been supplying her with food, after all, and it was only fair she return the favor. She was, on occasion, an okay person. 

Cottage Oak Lane wasn’t hard to find; she’d worked a few jobs there in the past, dwellers nesting in the crawl space beneath the mobile homes, burrowing in the sandy ground, and probably causing more than a few of the potholes Lav had warned about. She maneuvered her bike around them effortlessly, and while she didn’t have an exact address for Noltan’s trailer, it didn’t take long for her to find someone outside, stringing laundry up on a clothesline. She pulled up beside them, wiping the sweat from her forehead. She’d lived in Blossom her whole life and was still waiting to acclimate to the heat. 

“Excuse me, ma’am,” she said to the woman pinning tiny pairs of men’s thong underwear on the line. “Does a Noltan…” She paused, since she had no idea what his last name was. “Um, do you know a Noltan who lives on this road?”

As luck would have it, his trailer was only three down from the woman and her thongs. There was a truck parked in front, but she couldn’t remember if she’d seen a car in front of the office when Noltan had been by before. The name on the mailbox said Zimmerman, and though she didn’t think Noltan and Zimmerman were names that got along well, she was hot and tired from riding and this trailer would just have to do. 

She swung off her bike, aware of the sweat beneath her jeans, collecting on the backs of her thighs. Sweaty bum. She took her water bottle out of her messenger bag for a quick swig, then trudged determinedly for the door. She didn’t feel stupid until after she’d knocked. Because, really, what the hell was she doing here? The kid was probably at the dentist, or he’d found a job that was actually willing to hire him, and here she was, harassing him, hunting him down to ask why there hadn’t been any fresh coffee and pastry that morning.

When the door opened, she felt even more foolish, and also a little disgusted, because a large man answered in nothing but boxers and a stained wife-beater. He was unshaven and unwashed, judging by his greasy hair. Her first thought was that she’d gotten the wrong trailer. Madam Thong had sent her to the wrong place. 

“Hi,” she said, getting a thick scent of cigarettes and booze from within the trailer. “I think I have the wrong place. I’m looking for a kid named Noltan?”

To her shock, the man slammed the door in her face, nearly smashing it into her nose. She jumped back, pissed off. Only seconds later, the door swung open again, but instead of the rude, gross man, it was Noltan. 

All Ephraim could really see was the shiner around his left eye. She zeroed in on it, the same way she zeroed in on the vulnerable underbellies of certain dwellers, gripping the Taco Bell bag in her hand as hard as she’d grip a spiked baseball bat. Behind Noltan, she could see his father roaming about in the kitchenette, smoke billowing from a glass pipe, but Noltan quickly stepped onto the porch and closed the door, blocking Ephraim’s view of his life. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. The eye that wasn’t swollen and bruised was wide and afraid. She didn’t like it one bit, not the way he slouched, and not the way he kept looking over his shoulder, his hand still on the doorknob. 

“I brought you an empanada,” she said, thrusting the crinkly bag into his free hand. 

He stared down at the sugary gift, then up at her, disbelieving. “What are you doing here?” he asked again. 

She huffed, shuffling her feet, uncomfortable. One of the laces of her combat boots was undone, so she leaned down to tuck it in, to stall for time. 

“Ms. Camaro?” he asked, not whispering anymore, maybe because he was too surprised to remember to. 

“Lav was worried when you didn’t show up,” she answered. “She wouldn’t shut up until I came out here to check on you.”

“Oh. Well, you can tell her I’m fine.”

It was her turn to stare in disbelief. “Where’d you get that black eye?”

“Where’d you get yours?”

She prodded at the tenderness beneath her left eye, which she’d earned the day before from a lash of a monster tail. It wasn’t as blue and nasty as the kid’s, probably wouldn’t be, but it still hurt like a bitch. “I doubt your story is the same as mine,” she said. 

“Well, I can’t give you mine.” His voice was back down to a whisper and his hand was already twisting on the doorknob. “I have to go. I’ll try to come by in a few days, if you need help with the site.”

She didn’t stop him from going back into the trailer and politely closing the door in her face. But she did linger outside, sitting on the porch steps and sipping more of her water. Her stomach grumbled and she wished she’d gotten an empanada for herself. 

The crash inside made her shoot instantly to her feet, hand going for a weapon she didn’t have on her. Her fist closed uselessly over the air, and by the two steps—two seconds—it took her to reach the door, there was another crash, followed by a cry of pain and the sound of glass shattering. 

She wasn’t good at interacting with people, but she was goddamn good by now at saving them, and she had no qualms about kicking open the trailer door. It busted open with a single, swift kick. “Hey!”

The greasy, large man was standing over Noltan. Noltan, who was cowering in a bed of broken glass in the middle of the claustrophobic living room. 

“Get out, bitch!” the man yelled. He hurled an ashtray at her.

She ducked it easily and rushed forward, throwing an elbow in his face that sent him reeling backwards. “Come with me, kid,” she said, holding out her hand for Noltan to take. He hesitated only a moment before accepting her help, and she heaved him to his feet, which he stood on with wavering balance. His lip was cut, a bloody addition that hadn’t been there a minute before when they’d been on the porch. 

The man advanced, and she pushed Noltan behind her. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he raged. “You can’t leave here with my property!”

“You’ll leave here on a stretcher if you try to stop me,” Ephraim spat. But he didn’t believe her. For some reason, men trying to pick fights with her never did. 

It wasn’t that she got into a lot of tussles around town, but people could be assholes, and a lot of them seemed to get specifically in her way at inopportune times. But try as they might, she never let them stay in her way for long. 

When he pushed her, she punched him square in the jaw; she was tall enough to reach it, tall enough to knee him in the groin, too, which she did without hesitation. She preferred to fight monsters, but this guy was close enough. She sent him to the floor, her adrenaline spiking. When he tried to get up, she pressed a foot to his chest and smiled wide, manic, scary. He backed off, finally, glass crunching beneath him as he rolled miserably onto his side. 

Ephraim didn’t say anything else, just grabbed Noltan gently by the wrist and walked him down the tiny hall, which she presumed led to his bedroom. “You have one minute to pack up your stuff,” she said. 

Noltan didn’t question her. He slipped into the smaller of the two rooms, similar in size to Ephraim’s bathroom, and started throwing clothes into a backpack, along with some books. He was back at her side, zipping it up, in less than a minute. “Okay,” he said, breathless. 

“Okay,” she answered. They walked back into the living room, where the man was still splayed on the floor, groaning in misery over his kicked bits. Ephraim paused only to retrieve the Taco Bell bag from the floor and push it into Noltan’s hands. “You’re splitting that with me,” she said as soon as they’d walked outside. “Consider it my fee.”

He tried to hand her the bag, but she just waved it away. “Not now. Get on the bike. We’re leaving.”

He scoffed at her bicycle, even as he positioned himself awkwardly behind her on the back of it. “Don’t you have a car?” he asked. 

For that, she decided she’d probably eat the entire empanada. “I don’t like to drive,” she said, pushing off and pedaling down the pothole-lane, balancing the added weight of a skinny kid clutching her back. “And I don’t like people who beat on defenseless kids.”

His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “I don’t like people like that either.”

“Then we finally have one thing in common,” she declared half-heartedly; she could feel an ill temper rising, just from biking in the Nevada heat. Her adrenaline was declining swiftly. “But just the one, so don’t get any ideas.”

“I won’t, Ms. Camaro.”

She skidded to a halt. “Call me that again and I’ll drop you off at the orphanage.”

He laughed, and she was loath the admit it, but it was a relief to hear he wasn’t broken. So many kids were easy to break. She’d been easy to break. “There’s no orphanage in Blossom,” he pointed out.

“I’ll stick you in a cardboard box, then. Leave you out with the trash. Call me Ephraim.”

“Lav calls you Ephie.”

“Yeah, and I hate Lav. Call me Ephraim.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” A pause. “Oh, wow. You like being called Captain, don’t you?”

“Thursday is trash day.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens!

There was a brown, striped couch that lived in the corner of the office, and that’s where Ephraim threw Noltan’s bag upon their return. Lav looked up from whispering to Harry, and her shock was evident in the sudden straightening of her back and little “o” of her perfectly painted lips. 

“So, in case it wasn’t already obvious, you’re staying here.” Ephraim stomped through the office, threw open her bedroom door, and fished two deflated pillows—depression pillows, Lav called them—from her bed, and threw them on the couch. “The bathroom’s through there,” she continued, shoving her thumb over her shoulder. “There’s no kitchen. It’s a small space, so stay out of my way.”

“Have you considered becoming a realtor?” Lav inquired. 

“Have you considered finding another job?” Ephraim shot back, but she was too hot and sweaty and gross to put much fire behind it. She sighed and found a place to plop on the edge of Lav’s desk; her rolly chair was right there, but she knew Lav got pissed off when she sat on her desk and she was feeling petty. 

Noltan took a seat on the couch and clutched a pillow to his chest. “Does this mean I can become an exterminator?” he asked.

“What? Right to that? I don’t get a thank you?”

“Thank you. Of course, thank you,” Noltan said. “But … does this mean I can become an exterminator like you?”

Ephraim hopped up from the desk and Lav made a disgruntled noise as she restacked the papers Ephraim’s butt had left in disarray. “You cannot be an exterminator,” she said. “You cannot go on jobs with me.” At his look of grievance, she added this amendment: “If the dwellers speak French, I’ll call you, okay?”

Lav muttered something that was surely foul in her native language and Noltan cracked a smile. 

“None of that either!” Ephraim complained, taking the Taco Bell bag from Noltan and ripping into it. She was starving. “No talking all fancy and secretive behind my back.”

“I would never,” Lav promised, an acrylic-nailed hand pressed to her chest. 

“Me neither,” Noltan agreed, but he exchanged another small smile with Lav before hurriedly taking the empanada from Ephraim. He took a big bite—the kind of bite guys always take, one that takes up half the entirety of foodstuff—before handing it back, presumably for her to finish, which she did, impressively fast. 

“You’ll stay out of my business, do you understand?” she asked after she’d swallowed and wiped the crumbs from her mouth. “You can manage the stupid website and help Lav take phone calls, but that’s it.”

“Unless a dweller speaks French?” he asked. 

“Right. Or German, or whatever. Then you can help.”

“I see. And just so I know, when you say dweller, you mean …”

She stared at him, glanced at Lav, then cleared her throat. “I mean bugs,” she huffed, her laugh dry. “Obviously. It’s called Camaro Exterminations, isn’t it? What else could I mean?”

Noltan shrugged. “Just asking. You have a lot of scars, is all. Makes you wonder how scary those bugs are.”

“You’re one to talk.” She could feel her temper smoldering, was already regretting the rashness of taking a stranger into her home, just because she was soft for beat up kids. 

He touched a finger to his busted lip. It had stopped bleeding, but there were clear traces of other marks on his body, now that she was looking at him, now that she wasn’t actively trying to pretend like he didn’t exist. A sick sensation roiled in her stomach, dampening her anger. 

“Lav,” she said, eager to change the subject, “what do I have?”

Lav peered down at her scribble. “Dwellers reported in Caradine Park. Nocturnal, apparently. Scared the hell out of some kids who went there to make out.” She wrinkled her nose. “I told them you could handle it tonight.”

“Yeah, I can.” She rolled her shoulders, feeling the taut stretch of her still-injured back, the stitches making her skin tight. Ignoring Noltan’s curious glances, she headed into her room and straight to her weapons chest, where she proceeded to pick out one of her favorites: a baseball bat studded with nails. If her knife couldn’t reach soft underbellies, she could always count on death by bludgeoning. She changed her shirt, knowing she’d just sweat right through this one, too, and headed back into the office. 

Noltan’s eyes widened when he saw the bat. “What is that?” 

Ephraim remained silent, but Lav’s lip twitched in amusement, and she answered: “Bug spray.”

The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging awkwardly around one another. Noltan set his laptop up at the edge of Lav’s desk while she answered the phone and chattered mindlessly with her new “colleague”—that’s how she kept referring to him, and it was driving Ephraim so crazy that as soon as the sun started setting, she was out the door without a goodbye, her bat swinging at her side, her ponytail swinging between her shoulders. 

She was itching for a fight, had been ever since leaving Noltan’s father on the floor. It hadn’t been satisfying, leaving him conscious. But she’d find her satisfaction in the beaten hides of the Caradine Park dwellers. 

She’d cleared that area before, but the monsters of Blossom always came back. For ten years, it had been the same. She kept killing them, kept grinding her teeth as she grinded their bones, and yet there were always more. Where they kept coming from, she didn’t know. There wasn’t a Hellmouth in Blossom, she was pretty sure; she’d looked for it. But they were coming from somewhere, had been coming for a decade.

She leaned her bike against a tree at the park entrance. Night had fallen, and the park was empty, the playground abandoned. A warm wind pushed the merry-go-round into a creaky, slow spin. Her combat boots crunched as she walked over sandy ground, her eyes wide open and searching, her hands gripping the baseball bat. 

A car was parked under the trees, not too far from where she stood. It was an old pickup, and she wondered what the hell it was doing in the middle of a park. It wasn’t until she got closer that she saw the letters drawn on the windshield in bright pink marker. 

For Sale! Call Barb!

There was no number. As if, no matter what, the person wanting this truck would know who Barb was, and even more ridiculous, they’d already have her number! Ephraim didn’t know Barb, and it pissed her off. She didn’t want the truck, but what if she did? It also pissed her off that Barb had left her vehicle in the middle of a park. Rude. She couldn’t park it on a grassy slope outside a grocery store or something? Still … if Ephraim could drive, she might have been inclined to pick something similar. It was worn-looking, which she liked. Exuded toughness, which she required. She could fit all kinds of weapons in the truck bed, so she’d always be prepared, no matter the job. It would be nice, but …

She was running her hand along the rusty-red paintjob when she heard it. It was a sound that never ceased to make the hair stand up on her arms. Her palms might have gotten splinters, she squeezed the bat so hard. It was always sort of different, but the same. Some dwellers had long, clawed legs, dozens of them, and others were bipedal, a little more human, and some didn’t walk at all, but slithered. But no matter what, the sound was the same because it was completely unnatural. She could always pick them out in the darkness, because they never sounded quite right. They moved unnaturally. They made the air around them shift unnaturally. Right now, there was a dweller behind her—a monster—and she knew it was there, hiding in the shadows, because she could hear it existing against all odds. 

She spun around. Yelped. “Noltan?”

Her first horrifying thought was that he was the monster, even dressed in a striped polo shirt and khaki shorts. He lifted a hand to wave, and she grabbed his wrist, throwing him behind her. She didn’t turn to see him slam against Barb’s truck, but she heard it. A natural sound. “I’m going to kill you for this,” she spat, eyes scanning the dark depths of the park, where something else was still moving. “In a second.”

The branches of the nearest tree began to shake. 

“Get in the truck,” she whispered. 

“What? Why?”

“Oh my god. Get in the truck, you idiot. Unless you’d prefer to be disemboweled.”

“No, no, wouldn’t prefer that.” Still not watching, she heard him move around to the side of the truck, heard him jostle the door handle. It sounded fruitless. “It’s locked,” he said.

The branches shook again, and then a large black mass dropped from the tree. 

“Holy Jesus!” he gasped. “What is that?”

Ephraim started backing slowly towards the truck. “A bug,” she answered. Another shadow dropped from another tree. Another from another. “Bugs,” she amended. “Try the door again, would you?” She could see him now, in her periphery, could see him struggle with the door to no avail. 

“Are those things going to …?”

“Eat us?” she asked, pushing him out of the way and tugging on the handle herself, eyes still on the creeping shadows. “No. But they’re gonna try. Watch your eyes.” She slammed her bat into the driver’s seat window. It shattered. She grabbed Noltan and pushed him to the door. “Get in, crouch down in the floor space. Passenger side.”

He didn’t argue, which she hadn’t expected and was grateful for, but he left the driver’s side door wide open, as if expecting her to follow. Expecting her to crouch in the floor space with him. It had been a long time since she’d hidden from a monster. She slammed the door shut with a kick and gave the bat a practice swing. She could count five of them now, and—yes, she realized with a groan of frustration—they had her surrounded. Barb was gonna have a hard time selling her truck if it got covered in dweller guts, but that wasn’t her problem. Barb shouldn’t have left it in the park. 

The monsters growled as they neared, sounds like gargling gravel, thick throats and tongueless mouths. From within the truck, she heard Noltan’s frightened groan turn towards the hysterical. It made her grip her bat tighter, made her step forward, squaring her shoulders, planting her feet. 

The first of the shadows stepped into a streak of moonlight and she bared her teeth at the hideous thing. It was nothing like the basement dwellers. Nothing quite like any dweller she’d encountered yet. If she had to compare it to something, she could loosely compare it to the monster ten years ago, the one who’d started it all, the one she still saw in her nightmares sometimes, right before she woke up panting with her father’s face seared into her brain. 

They were tall, taller than her by a foot, and their bodies were encased in blackened, char-like skin, like molten lava that was halfway dried, broken open only at the joints, pink muscle flexing at the sharp angles as it moved its—were those knees? There were what looked to be two knees on each leg, and there were three legs. It had eyes, and that was the worst part, because there were only two, too human to suit her, though larger than any human eye could possibly be. She remembered hearing once that a giant squid had eyes as big as beach balls, and she wondered if they were as terrifying as the eyes on these monsters. If they were, she couldn’t fathom it. They were round and smooth and shining, black as squid ink, and she could see herself reflected fully in them, from boot to ponytail, could see the bat in her hand, its slight tremble. 

They gargled again, deep, menacing, disgusting rumbles. And again, Noltan’s cry could be heard inside the truck. 

“Better shut up,” she warned. “If they kill me, they’ll come for you next, and they’ll know exactly where you are with all that crying.”

“I’m not crying.” His head popped up in the smashed window.

“Get down!” she shouted. The monsters were closing in on them swiftly. Their growls were so loud, it was like a thunderstorm hovering directly over her head. They were all swathed in moonlight now, and she could see every inch of their charred, molten flesh as she spun slowly around, trying to keep sight of all five as they crept forward. 

Growl, rumble, gargle, growl.

“Ephraim, listen,” Noltan gasped, his head still in the window, like an idiot.

“Are you an idiot?” she asked. “Get down.”

“Captain,” he pleaded. 

“Oh my god.” She rolled her eyes. Hard. 

“Listen for a second,” he urged. “They’re talking to you.”

Gargle, gurgle, groan. 

“What?” She cocked her head, sparing a glance at the weirdo kid for a split second before looking back at the monsters. “No, they’re not. They’re dwellers. Dwellers don’t talk.”

“They don’t talk in your language, maybe,” said Noltan. “But they’re talking. I can hear it.”

Her laugh was bitter. “That gargling is just the sound of a monster whetting its appetite. Pretty sure.”

Gurgle, gaggle, grrrr.

“Pretty sure that one just said, ‘Where’s the prince?’” Noltan’s head was leaning through the shattered window, peering out at the circle of monsters surrounding them, now only a few yards away. The growling continued a moment, and he closed his eyes, head tilted in concentration, lip bitten in deep thought. “Y-r-h-e-n?” She could feel him staring at her, but refused to meet his gaze. “Do you know a…Prince Yrhen?” He said it like ‘Eee-ren’, then, out of nowhere, began rumbling nonsensically. A strange growl came from his throat. A warbly, awkward grumble, like the sound of the monsters, but made with a human throat, so it sounded less scary and more hilarious. 

The monsters stopped their forward stalking at the sound, their huge eyes swiveling from Ephraim and locking onto the kid gargling out the truck window. When Noltan fell silent, the monsters continued their own gargling growl. When they stopped, Noltan grumbled again. It went back and forth in such a manner for about a minute. It was the strangest minute of Ephraim’s life. 

“They’re looking for someone,” Noltan said, finally switching back to English. “They’ve been looking. For a long time. A Prince Yrhen? They need to find him. They think he’s here. In Blossom.”

Gargle, gurgle, grom, grom, grom.

“Oh,” Noltan whispered. 

“What?” she asked, too confused to even argue with how crazy this was. Dwellers didn’t talk, they attacked. But … they were always making some sort of noise. Had they … could it be they’d been trying to speak to her this whole time and she just never understood? She recalled their incessant clicking and hissing and slithering. 

“They just said, um, if we don’t know where the prince is, they’ll … well, I think that was ‘eat’, but I can’t be absolutely sure.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m absolutely sure.” She reached out and pushed his head back inside the truck, then reclaimed a firm grip on the bat. The sharp, ragged nails glinted in the moonlight, not nearly as menacing as the squid eyes and lava skin, but the best she could do. 

They continued to gurgle at her, but she was done waiting, understood enough of the conversation to know what she always knew going into a job: dwellers wanted her dead, so she had to want them dead more. And that was never a problem.

She swung. That was enough to choke the growls from the monsters and get them moving. Their limbs weren’t clawed, which was good, but they were like huge clubs zooming straight at her head, which was bad. She ducked and whirled, but could hear the blow of a nasty fist rushing over her head, close enough to catch the end of her ponytail. 

“Watch out, Captain!” Noltan yelled, and she twisted around, snapping out her booted foot to kick away the dweller at her back. It staggered from the force of her kick and she followed through with a smack of her bat. The nails lodged into one of its great, horrible eyes, and when she yanked it free, the eye tore and the dweller screamed. 

She turned, went for the next one, noted distantly that they were waiting their turns to attack. Did most dwellers wait their turn? She tried to remember, couldn’t quite. But now that she was noticing it, there was definitely a sort of systematic approach to the fight. They weren’t a pack of wild things, trying to tear her apart all together. It was more like a fencing match, a stupid gentleman’s sport or something, the way they came at her one at a time. 

She felled the next, found they went down easily with a bat to the head, like most humans would—not that she’d ever tried it. There were only three left, the other two alive but useless, twitching on the ground, black blood dripping. The growling started up again as she was caught by surprise by a searing-hot hand latching onto her ankle. She bellowed as it lifted her. Suddenly, she was upside-down and swinging. 

“They really want to know where the prince is!” Noltan yelled. He hadn’t stuck his head back out the window, but she could see him looking at her in horror from his crouch on the passenger seat. It hurt her head to look at him, so she focused on the molten chest in front of her, and the flash of shining teeth only inches from her face. 

An insane part of her wanted to tell them that the prince was working part time in a five-and-dime, but instead she shouted, “There aren’t any princes in Blossom, Nevada!” She punctuated her claim with a punch of her bat, managing to shove it—upside down, which was very difficult and she was very impressed with herself—into the throat of the dweller holding her by the ankle. She was dropped, and twisted in mid-air just in time to not break her neck. She still landed hard on her side, though, and when she breathed in, there was a sharp stabbing in her ribs. Great. She reciprocated with a sharp stabbing of her own, pulling out her knife and slamming it into the dweller’s abdomen—or what she assumed was an abdomen. Then she yanked as hard as she could, sending the blade sideways along its stomach. It had the desired effect. 

She leapt back from the innards slopping from the dweller and threw the blade at the next monster. It landed in one of its huge eyes, which blinded it from her next attack. She swung the bat, aiming for the handle of the knife. It landed, pushing the blade firmly into the dweller’s head.

One left. 

It started growling. Noltan scrambled into the driver’s seat of the truck to better listen. 

“It says they’re not going to stop until they find the prince,” he interpreted.

She spared him a glance; he looked a little green, was clearly not ready to be an exterminator, just like she’d said. “Ask it how long they’ve been looking for this prince.”

Noltan nodded, then garbled some nonsense that sounded like the beginning retches of a cat throwing up. The dweller responded. 

“Ten of your years,” answered Noltan.

Ephraim’s stomach flipped over. 

Grom, gurble, grom.

“They know Prince Yrhen is here,” he continued slowly, interpreting the steady stream of the monster’s growl. “They come from … everywhere … seeking him. The universe needs him to pay. They will find him, no matter how many you kill.”

Grum, groo, grout.

“You can’t protect him,” Noltan continued. “He’s … not worth protecting … Tell me, where is Prince Yrhen?”

She couldn’t speak. Kept thinking ten years, ten years, ten years. 

“Ephraim?” Noltan’s voice was small. 

She swallowed hard, staring at the dweller. In the reflection of its giant eyes, she could see how scared she looked. She felt trapped in one of her nightmares, trapped in a moment that had happened long ago. Ten years. 

Before she could register moving, the bat hit the dweller’s head with a lethal crack that echoed through Caradine Park like a lightning strike. 

Five down, none to go.

She stood unmoving, unhearing, and dangerously unaware, until the sound of an engine revving jolted her back into her body. Noltan was still in the truck, but his hands were on the steering wheel and his grin was verging on frenzied. 

She stared at him in awe. “Did you hotwire Barb’s truck?”

“Put your bike in the back,” he instructed, “and I’ll drive us home.”

Lav was singing Celine Dion to Harry when they got back. The black blood splattered all over Ephraim didn’t faze her, nor did the sound of the door slamming, nor did the rusty truck in the parking lot. 

“Good, you two are back. I ordered Indian.”

“You let him follow me,” Ephraim growled, sounding a bit like the dwellers she’d just killed. “He almost got us both killed.”

“Not really,” said Noltan, plopping down on his couch. “And if I hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t know about Prince Yrhen.”

Lav stopped caressing her plant long enough to pay them both proper attention. She even stood from her desk, hip jutting to the side as she fixed her shaded gaze on Ephraim. Or maybe Noltan. It was impossible to tell with those stupid sunglasses on. “Sorry, what?”

Ephraim wasn’t in the mood. She was filthy—again—and injured—again. She hobbled to her rolly chair, hand clutching her bruised, but probably not broken, rib. She sat, knew she was getting monster blood on the cushion and didn’t care. The end of her ponytail was singed black and she smelled bad. “Noltan can speak dweller,” she sneered. 

Lav sat on the edge of her desk and crossed her legs, flashing an obscene amount of thigh. She stuck a candy cigarette between her lips and sucked. “Hmm. And what did the dwellers say?”

“They kept talking about a prince,” Noltan said. Somehow, he’d gotten his computer in his lap and was typing furiously as he spoke. “What’s a dweller, really? Because those things weren’t cockroaches.” He didn’t stop typing, but was looking at Ephraim with wide eyes. He was riding that first-kill high, even if he hadn’t been the one killing. She could remember that feeling. Still felt it a little bit every time. Craved it, even. 

“I don’t know what they are,” she answered, kicking weakly to send her chair into a single, slow spin. “They’re monsters.”

“Monsters?” He said it like he didn’t believe her, which pissed her off. 

“What would you call what we saw, if you don’t call them monsters?” she countered, curious. In her mind, that’s always what they’d been. After what had happened, they couldn’t be anything else. 

Noltan kept typing, until he stopped. “I found it,” he announced.

“What? Did you search for Prince What’s-It?” she asked. 

“No. I found Barbara Rogers’ phone number.” When she glared at him in confusion and annoyance, he elaborated. “Barb. Of Blossom. Owner of the truck parked outside?” He pulled a piece of paper out of the pile of crap on his couch/bed, scratched something down on it, and stood with a stretch, passing it to Ephraim. “You should call her and tell her we took her truck.”

She accepted the number and stared down at it, silent. 

“You’re rich, right?” he asked. 

“You’re a lot ruder than you were yesterday,” Lav commented happily. 

Ephraim ignored them both. 

“You should buy that truck,” Noltan continued. At her silence, he pressed. “I’ll drive it. You don’t have to drive it. But you should have one. Just in case.”

“Just in case what?” she asked, placing the scrap of paper on the desk and smoothing out the wrinkles with her fingers, their slight dampness smudging the pencil lines. 

“How am I supposed to know?” he answered, and, yes, he was a lot ruder than he had been. But strangely—or maybe not so strangely—it made her dislike him a little less. “Sometimes you need to be able to run. And driving is faster than running.”

That was true. And she was rich. “I am rich,” she said. 

Lav put two and two together for the first time, placed her hands on her cheeks and gasped, her candy cigarette dangling from her pouty bottom lip. “You’re going to buy that ugly thing?”

And it was decided, just like that—just because Lav was disgusted and Ephraim loved disgusting her—that she would, indeed, buy Barb’s truck. “I’ll call her,” she assured Noltan, who was hovering over her, his body still buzzing with adrenaline. If she’d had a rough day, she couldn’t imagine how the kid was feeling. He’d be crashing soon, when he lost the adrenaline high and succumbed to exhaustion. She wanted to utilize his skills before he did that. 

“First, I want you to search for a Prince Irwin,” she said. “Can you find him online?”

He laughed at her on his short walk back to the couch, re-balancing the laptop on his skinny legs. “I can search for Prince Yrhen,” he corrected. 

“Don’t say it like it’s some common name and I’m stupid for misremembering it,” she spat. “Just look up Prince Aaron.”

“Before the Indian food gets here,” Lav added, actually blowing out imaginary smoke from her candy cigarette.

“Fine.” Noltan started tapping madly at the computer keys again, while Lav adjusted her wig and Ephraim frowned at the ruined ends of her ponytail. 

“You’re gonna have to cut that,” Lav murmured over the frantic staccato of typing. 

Ephraim tilted her head, letting her assistant work her glittery nails into her hair, pulling at the elastic and letting the bleached strands fall messily over her shoulders. Her hair felt crispy where it brushed against her skin. 

“The pathetic thing is, it was this dry before it got burned,” Lav commented, reading Ephraim’s mind, which was always so annoying. 

Her nail caught on a tangle and Ephraim hissed in pain. “Careful! Jesus.”

“Relax, drama queen. Do you want me to cut it or what?”

“Fine. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“You say that now, but don’t bitch at me when you wake up tomorrow and start complaining that you wanted to grow it out.”

By the time Lav had fished scissors out of her drawer and had combed Ephraim’s thirsty strands as best she could, Noltan finally stopped typing. 

“Did you find…” Ephraim had to stop and think. “…Yvette?”

“No,” he answered. The glow of the computer screen lit his face, making his eyes brighter than normal. “I didn’t find Prince Yrhen either. Apparently, there really aren’t any princes living in Blossom, Nevada.”

Ephraim and Lav scoffed in unison.

“But I did find, and this is pretty interesting, a Henry Prince that doesn’t live too far from here.”

Ephraim heard the first snip of the scissors. “How is that interesting? Or at all relevant?”

Noltan looked, for the first time, a little put out. Which, rude. She was the one who’d saved his ass twice today and was covered in blood. “Because Henry Prince is an anagram for Prince Yrhen. And not a very clever one.”

“Not a very clever one,” Lav repeated in a high-pitched impression that was so off base, even Ephraim had to laugh. 

Noltan did some more impressive typing, their laughter not bothering him in the least. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? If this prince is being hunted by dwellers then he wouldn’t just be hanging around with his real name. He’d be living under an alias.”

“If my name was Yrhen, I’d be living under an alias too, never mind the dwellers after me,” Ephraim muttered. 

“Well, Henry Prince might not be our Prince Yrhen, but it’s the closest thing I can suss out here.” He sighed, his keys starting to drag a bit slower across the keyboard. 

“Question,” Lav interjected, still snipping merrily at Ephraim’s hair, even though she should have been finished by now. “Why do we care about this prince just because some dwellers are looking for him?”

“Because,” Ephraim said, sitting up straighter in her chair and earning a weak slap from Lav and a plea for her to stop wriggling, “if monsters are in Blossom because they’re looking for him, if they came here in the first place because of him, I want to find him and kill him myself.”

“Woah.” Noltan’s eyes shot up from the computer screen to gape at her. “What?”

At her back, Val cackled. 

“Okay, maybe not kill him, but maybe not leave him alive either,” she amended, sort of. At his horrified face, she continued to explain, even though she wasn’t entirely certain how she felt about any of it yet, knew next to nothing about anything. “Look, up until tonight, I didn’t even consider that dwellers were sentient, let alone trying to speak. I’ve been exterminating them because they’re monsters that won’t get out of my town. But if there’s a reason they’re here, here and only here, out of all the places in the freaking world, and it’s because of a stupid prince with a stupid name, I have to find him. I have to find out why this has been happening.”

She finished speaking and there was an awkward pause. 

“I feel, like, super inspired right now,” Lav said.

“Shut up,” she replied. “Noltan, you said this prince wasn’t far from here. Where is he?”

“That’s the interesting part.”

“Oh, that’s the interesting part.”

“Lav, shut up. Kid, where the hell is the prince?”

A smirk spread across Noltan’s face, and it looked like it belonged there, like it was an important piece that had been missing for a long time and was finally snapping back into its rightful place. “Get this. Henry Prince lives in Las Vegas and owns an exclusive nightclub that’s really hard to get into. According to these online articles, he’s an honest-to-god, real life playboy.” His smirk was a full-fledged smile now, broad and thrilled. “Like Batman or something.”

“Ugh. Seriously?” asked Ephraim. “Are there no other possibilities for this prince’s identity? It’s seriously got to be a playboy douche in Vegas?”

“It’s always a playboy douche in Vegas,” Lav agreed, offering Ephraim a candy cigarette as a show of solidarity. 

Ephraim almost accepted it, until she remembered it was fake. She swatted at it and rolled away on her chair. “I don’t like Las Vegas,” she complained. Even though it was only a forty-minute drive from Blossom, she’d only been once, and that was a long time ago. Her father had been alive. Everything had been different. But she didn’t like it then and she wouldn’t like it any better now. 

“Boo. Let’s go.” Lav had followed her rolly chair and was back to snipping at her strands. “You never take me anywhere. I want to go to a fancy nightclub.”

“That’s the trouble, you see,” said Noltan. He was back to typing, back to staring wide-eyed at the screen. “When I say the club is exclusive, I mean it’s really exclusive, as in, it excludes half the population. It’s a gentleman’s club.”

“Like a strip club?”

“I don’t think so. It looks like all card games and stuff. Very ‘boys only’.”

Lav hummed thoughtfully behind her. “We might need to cut it some more, Ephie.”

“Yeah. Probably should,” she replied. 

Noltan remained a picture of confusion. “Did you hear me? No girls allowed. You can’t get in.”

“It’s not a problem, kid,” Ephraim said. “I know I’m scruffy right now, but I look damn good in a suit.” It had been a while since she’d craved cropped hair and svelte, masculine cuts of clothes, but they were just as easy to don as her long blond hair and tank tops. The only thing about herself she didn’t consider changeable was her dislike of high heels. “I’ll get into that club,” she assured. “Lav, make me look handsome.”

“Yes, sir. But not until we eat. The Indian’s here.”

True enough, a car was pulling up to the front of the office, its headlights shining through the windows. Ephraim’s stomach rumbled; she was suddenly ravenous. 

“Plan: we eat, we cut, and tomorrow, we go to Vegas,” she said, hating it but knowing there was no way she wouldn’t make it happen.

“Yay!” Lav threw down her scissors, which was not appropriate safety protocol, and headed for the door, tip money waving gleefully in her hand. 

“Fine with me,” Noltan said, closing up his laptop and looking towards the takeout girl, her arms filled with stacks of food containers. “But call Barb first. You can’t ride your bike to Las Vegas.”

“I could,” Ephraim grumbled, but she was already reaching for the phone, her finger running over the smeared number written on the scrap of paper. It rang while Lav exchanged money for stacks of food. When a woman picked up on the other end, she spoke with a kind, motherly sort of voice. 

“This is Barb,” she said. 

And damn it, Ephraim recognized that voice and knew exactly who Barb was, just as the writing on the windshield had foretold. She’d done a job for her the previous week, and actually did already have her phone number. She rolled her eyes. “Hi, this is Ephraim Camaro. I want to buy your truck.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I tried to write Ephraim in a way that, were there to be a movie (hahaaha yeah right), her part could be cast with either a male or female or whatever actor. Basically, she uses "she/her" pronouns, but you're free to mold her any way you feel comfortable.

Chapter Four

It was weird sleeping in her room when she knew Noltan was out in the office, sleeping on the couch. It had been a long time since she’d had company of any kind stay the night. It had been so long, in fact, that she hardly knew how to act once they’d both gotten into their pajamas and Lav had left. She’d felt so supremely awkward that she’d hurried back into her room and half-slammed the door. Then she’d realized the kid would have to brush his teeth or whatever in the bathroom, and had to reopen it as if she hadn’t meant to slam it, which of course she had. She was a door slammer. It was an innate part of her, like voting Democrat and always having to pluck that one weird and wiry black hair that grew from her chin no matter how many times she plucked it. Slam, vote, pluck. That was her.

But now there was some kid in the next room. She’d brought him here. He was her responsibility. Everything had happened that she didn’t want happening, and it was all her fault. She slept restlessly in her room, spending most of the night sitting on the bed. She puffed on a candy cigarette, because Lav had left the pack on her desk and Ephraim needed to keep her hands and mouth busy. She hadn’t known you could even buy these anymore, thought they’d been outlawed or something, for making cigarettes look cool. The joke was that they looked anything but cool, not when you were trying to pull smoke out of a piece of candy.

She did find sleep eventually, but it wasn’t satisfying. It was a night that passed like a chore. If she’d been alone, she would have wandered the office, maybe even gotten on her bike and gone for a ride, looking for dwellers to kill. But she didn’t want to wake Noltan. In the morning, she regretted that, because he had no problem waking her. 

The jingle bell over the door made her startle awake, not because it went off once, but because it jingled incessantly for about five minutes, until she was so mad, she couldn’t even pretend to still be asleep. She stomped out of her room and found Lav assembling a spread of bagels and cream cheeses on her desk. The source of the jingling was from Noltan, who had the door propped open and was—she glared at him—dusting the top of the door, including the bell. 

She grimaced as they greeted her, then retreated back to her room to get ready. Irritation fueled her as she dressed and washed her face. Her appearance in the mirror was so different from yesterday. Lav had cropped her hair short, though it was still longer than she used to wear it. It looked good, now that her hair was all the same color again. She really shouldn’t have been a blonde—blondeness was meant for people who cared. More often than not, she let her dark roots grow out long enough to count the gray hairs, until Lav had to manhandle her into submission. “I’m the one who has to look at you all day,” she’d scold.

So insomnia had given her time to touch up her roots and iron the suit she’d be wearing to the club. It had been years since she’d worn it, but it still fit, still clung in all the right places, still made her shoulders a bit broader and her waist a bit trimmer and her ass a bit rounder. She put it on, leaving the top button open and not bothering with a tie. She decided to give her combat boots a break and slipped into an old pair of penny loafers, which were honestly too worn for the job, but would have to do, because they were all she had. If things went accordingly, no one would be studying her shoes anyway. 

When she walked back into the office, she could feel the change in her walk, the higher tip of her chin. Hands sliding into her gloriously deep pockets, she watched Noltan watching her, finding amusement in the way his eyebrows shot way up on his forehead. 

“You do clean up nice,” he said faintly. 

“Shut up,” she answered. “And if you make that bell jingle one more time, it’ll be the last thing you ever do. Why are you even cleaning? Eat a bagel and go over the plan with us.” 

They gathered around Lav’s desk, noshing while they rehashed Operation Vegas. That’s what Noltan kept calling it, even after both Ephraim and Lav had ruthlessly made fun of him. He only made things worse for himself when he revealed a plastic bag full of spy equipment. 

“What is that?” Lav asked, hand held over her mouth while she chewed and talked at the same time. Her nails were white, her hair was white, and her dress was white. She looked like a sexy, sparkly snowman. 

“There’s a surveillance equipment store by the bagel shop,” he explained, upending the bag on the desk. A tiny headset bounced off a bagel. “I thought this stuff might be useful, you know, for the infiltration.”

Ephraim poked at an earpiece. “This thing is too big. Everyone would see it. Does this crap even work?”

“I think it’s worth trying. So we can communicate with you once you’re inside the club,” he said. 

“Why would I need to communicate with you?” she asked, frowning when she realized there was a sesame seed stuck between her teeth from her everything bagel. “Are you gonna give me advice on what drink to order?”

“Maybe he wants to be able to tell you when you’re being a bitch,” Lav suggested, handing her a toothpick. 

Noltan blushed. “That’s not it,” he said, too quickly. “I mean, maybe a little. But I mostly just want to know what’s going on. This guy could be dangerous, right? He must be, if he’s a prince and a bunch of monsters are after him. What if you get into trouble in there?”

“Then I’ll get myself out of trouble, like always.”

“You worry too much, Nolty,” Lav agreed. “Pass the cinnamon cream cheese.”

The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent with Lav taking messages on the phone and Noltan messing around on his laptop—“I’m researching,” he kept claiming, even though Ephraim had seen the Solitary screen open. She paced, prowled, and puttered. She drank too much coffee and couldn’t relax. Tried to nap, couldn’t sleep. Looked at herself in the mirror, plucked that little black hair. Ended up huddled in her room, watching My So-Called Life re-runs on her tiny television set and deciding she needed more flannel in her wardrobe. 

When they’d eaten stale bagels and the rest of the Indian for dinner, it was late enough for the club to be open, and finally time to leave. 

“And thus begins Operation Vegas,” Noltan said as he cranked the truck ignition (the keys had been exchanged for a check earlier in the afternoon). But he must not have predicted exactly how Operation Vegas would begin, because when Britney Spears started playing at full blast, he screamed. 

After the initial shock of Lav’s very loud radio selection surprise, they all ended up singing “Baby One More Time” as they started down the highway towards Las Vegas.

It wasn’t a long drive, but it was a Thursday night, and though the club wasn’t on the main strip, it was close enough for traffic to be clogged. They circled the truck three times, looking for a place to park, and when they couldn’t find one, Ephraim finally lost her patience (which she thought was quite commendable, considering she’d spent so long wedged between Noltan and Lav). 

Lav teetered on the sidewalk where Ephraim had herded her, adjusting her latex micro-skirt and matching crop top. She’d insisted on changing clothes before they left, insisted she wasn’t Vegas Strip enough, even though Ephraim told her repeatedly that she was definitely giving off strong strip vibes. 

“What am I supposed to do?” Noltan called through the rolled down window. He’d dressed for the occasion, as well, in one of Ephraim’s old suit jackets and a pink oxford that looked better on him than it ever had on her. 

“Just circle around until you find a spot,” Ephraim suggested, patting her pockets down for her wallet, her pocket knife, and her earpiece, even though she’d already refused to wear it. Which Noltan hadn’t liked. 

Lav pushed past her, clambering back into the truck and pulling down the overhead mirror to make sure her wig was still on straight. “Don’t worry, Nolty,” she said. “She’ll be fine. Let’s get donuts.”

“We can’t leave her—” he began. 

“I’ll be fine. Seriously.” Ephraim smoothed down her trousers, glanced again at her old shoes. The evening wind felt strange on her exposed skin, her head felt lighter than it had in years. She fought the urge to fidget with the short hair tickling her neck. “Chances are, this guy’s just some average dude with a coincidental name. Even if he’s not, I know how to handle myself. Get me a chocolate frosted.”

Lav gave her a thumbs up and rolled the window back up, even as Noltan started rambling off complaints beside her. Ephraim waved them off and they started down the street, where they were quickly swallowed up by traffic. 

She turned to the club and gave it a preliminary sweep with her eyes. It wasn’t as tacky as she’d expected. Compared to other places on the Strip, it was downright muted, with a sign in large, cursive lettering over the door, spelled out in a velvety, neon blue: Blue Rock Gentleman’s Club.

“Stupid name,” she muttered as she slipped into the queue. The line to get in wasn’t too long, and she only had to wait behind ten people (ten impeccably dressed guys) before it was her turn to face the bouncer. 

He was pretty intimidating: a big guy, tall and muscular, with mean eyes. The last time she’d seen such an apathetic pair of eyes, she’d been looking in the mirror. 

“Name?” he asked. He had a clipboard in his hand. 

“Ephraim Camaro,” she answered, refusing to be intimidated by all that muscle.

His eyes scanned down the list on his clipboard, then scanned down her. She winced inwardly, knowing he was cataloguing her old penny loafers and out of style lapels. She wasn’t petite, but she was smaller than a lot of other guys, and her waist was tiny. She wondered if he was noticing that, since his eyes lingered around her middle before darting back up. 

“You’re not on the list,” he said.

“I know.”

He put the clipboard on the stool that kept the door propped open, and crossed his arms over his chest. “So.”

“So,” she repeated, resting a hand on her hip, growing impatient. “Let me in anyway.”

He stared at her. Then his lips split into a grin. It was as mean as the look in his eyes. “Why would I do that?” 

“Because I have money to spend and I want to spend it here. My name’s not on your list, but you’re the one with the list, so add it yourself. Or are you as illiterate as you look?”

“What did you say your name was?” he asked, picking the clipboard back up even though he wasn’t taking his eyes off her. “Cadillac?”

“Ephraim Camaro,” she said, blood burning with annoyance. “Are you gonna let me in?”

“A brat like you? No way.”

She fumed. Brat? 

“Not unless,” he continued, doing that thing where you arch a single eyebrow, which was something she’d always been jealous of, “you let me buy you a drink once you’re inside.”

She couldn’t respond right away, because she was so mad she couldn’t speak. 

“Tell you what,” continued the bouncer, “I’ll let you inside, Ephie, because I like your, uh, shoes. And maybe when I see you at the bar, you’ll tell me what you’re drinking, so the next one can be on me.”

When he stepped to the side, she hurried through the door before he could change his mind. Only when she was standing safely on polished hardwood did she turn back to him with a response. “It’s Ephraim, you dick. And I don’t accept drinks from assholes.”

She was halfway down the hall when she heard his answering laughter. “Guess you can never make your own drinks, then,” he called.

She put up a middle finger and kept walking until she reached a beaded curtain. It chimed as she walked through, and then she was in a dark, moody room, filled with smoke from tobacco and weed, and booming with the dulcet jams of…Barry Manilow? She looked up at the ceiling, which was covered in a really fancy version of glow in the dark sticky stars, and wondered if this nightclub was seriously playing “Copa Cabana”. 

It was pretty crowded inside, considering there weren’t many people waiting to get in. And the crowd was as Noltan had warned: entirely male. There wasn’t any dancing going on; it didn’t seem to be that kind of club. Instead, there were dozens of poker tables littered around the room, many of them fully occupied, men leaning over cards and smoking, drinking whiskey from crystal tumblers. It wasn’t really Ephraim’s scene. At all. But then, her scene was either killing monsters or sitting at home trying not to kill Lav. And the job wasn’t to have a good time, it was to find Prince Evan or whatever and get some long-awaited clarity on her messed up life. 

She zeroed in on the long bar lit up with blue and red spotlights on the far side of the room. Bypassing several intense looking card games, she set her elbows on the bar right as Barry revealed that poor Lola had done lost her mind. The bartender caught her eye and winked as he finished blending a margarita for a patron at the other end of the bar. She waited, tapping her stubby nails against the bar. It must have been a complicated margarita, because it was taking him forever, and before he could finish salting the rim of the glass, Ephraim was no longer alone. She could sense a warm body to her right, pushing up against the bar and leaning on an elbow, like she was. She didn’t look, usually opted for Total Ice Outs when situations like this one occurred—though they didn’t occur often. She worked very hard emitting a “Don’t Approach” vibe. But there were always idiots who either didn’t notice or didn’t care. 

“What do you know,” said the uninvited male presence. “It’s Ephie Camaro, in the flesh. Who would have thought I’d find you here, at this bar, of all places?”

She rolled her eyes so hard, her head ached. She’d only heard the bouncer utter a few sentences and she already had his voice memorized, totally against her will. She still didn’t turn, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his existence. Unsuccessfully, she tried to mind-control the bartender to get him moving faster. It didn’t work. It never did. 

“No?” The bouncer shifted in her periphery. He was tall, taller than her by a head. And his hair was a blond that wasn’t from a bottle, as far as she could tell—and she was kind of an expert. “How about this? What’s a man like you doing in a place like this?”

At her continued silence, he leaned a little closer, still out of her personal space, but about to breach the line of politeness. “Not digging the pick-ups, huh? Maybe that’s because you’re,” he paused dramatically, “not like other guys.”

The bartender approached, then, and his timing was impeccable, because Ephraim was very close to punching out a complete stranger. He had a bright smile for her and a brighter one for the bouncer. He also had a faint blush on his cheeks, which he hadn’t had whilst mixing fruity drinks. “Sorry about the wait,” he rushed, blinking long lashes. “What can I get for you?”

“A beer,” she said. “And some answers, hopefully.”

“It’s on me, Toby,” the bouncer announced.

“No, it’s not. It’s on me, because it’s my beer. And I’ll take whatever you have on tap. Thanks.” She slammed down a twenty before her bulky, unwanted shadow could try anything funny, then finally deigned to look at him while Toby fetched her drink. “Get lost.”

“In your eyes, you mean?”

Again, Toby appeared before she could throw a punch, setting the mug of frothy pale ale in front of her. She didn’t touch it, didn’t actually want it. 

“I was wondering, is Henry here tonight?” she asked, aiming for casual and disinterested. 

Toby’s expression was hard to read. “Henry?”

“The owner? Henry Prince? I’m a friend of his and I’m supposed to meet up with him tonight. He here?”

Toby glanced at the bouncer, and okay, maybe she did seem a bit suspicious, but it was no reason to throw her out. 

“It’s okay,” the bouncer said, leaning across the bar to pat Toby softly on the cheek, which made his face even redder. “I’ll take him to the back.” He turned to her. “There’s a private game happening in the VIP room,” he explained. “That’s where the boss will be tonight. Follow me?” 

She didn’t want to follow him, didn’t want him to consider himself her savior for the evening. But she needed to find Prince, and if that meant letting this asshole escort her through the club, so be it. 

He scooped up her beer mug before leading the way, and she accepted it from him just to have something to do with her hands. They went down a discreet hallway in the far corner, where the hum of “Copa Cabana” ended and the beginning notes of “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” were beginning, the sound more muted than it’d been in the main room. 

“This place is crazy weird,” she commented, mostly to herself, but also loudly enough for the bouncer to be insulted, if that was possible. “This music sucks.”

They reached a black door at the end of the hall and he turned to her, smiling, not at all insulted. “That’s just one man’s opinion. Care to hear another man’s?”

“Not even a little.”

He shrugged, large shoulders shifting under a black t-shirt just this side of too tight—typical bouncer/gym rat uniform. “Suit yourself.”

When his hand lingered on the doorknob and he opened his mouth to say something else, she nudged past him and took the knob herself. “Is Prince in here?”

“Let’s see if we can find him for you,” he said, nudging her out of the way and reclaiming the knob with his hand, which was much bigger than hers, but softer too. “After you.” He pushed the door open, holding it for her. 

She passed him in disgust, then put him out of her mind. She wasn’t here to bicker with a bouncer, after all. She took in the private room, its large, circular table in the center, the men seated around it of varying age and quality of beard. It smelled like weed and whiskey, and she wished she still smoked cigarettes, just to have something to do. She sipped her beer. There. That was something. She eyed every face before her, wondering which one could be her guy. Henry Prince. Prince Yrhen. 

No one acknowledged her. Not until the bouncer entered the room behind her and closed the door, then all the men seemed to break from some sort of poker hypnosis and looked up with greetings and smiles. 

“Finally!” said the man with the oiliest beard. “We’ve been waiting for half an hour.”

“What took so bloody long?” asked another man, this one with the best moustache, in Ephraim’s opinion. 

The bouncer pushed past her, knocking into her shoulder as he went, and found one of two empty seats around the table, like he belonged there, like bouncers were allowed to just stop what they were doing to play cards in the backroom of clubs. Maybe at this weird club, they were. 

“Hey, Henry,” said the man with the ugliest—and probably most expensive—suit jacket. “Who’s your friend?”

Ephraim’s eyes widened, both at being acknowledged (finally) and hearing the name “Henry”. It took a moment longer than it should have for her to put it together, mostly because it had never crossed her mind, like, at all. 

“This is Mr. Camaro,” replied the bouncer—Henry—with a wink. “He’s a friend of mine I asked to join me for the evening. Apparently. Come on over, Ephie, and sit next to me.” He patted the only other empty chair, which was, of course, directly beside him. 

Trying to play it cool, struggling to keep the confusion off her face, she sauntered with faux-confidence to the table, where she sat beside the man she’d come miles to find. “Didn’t expect to find you manning the entrance to your own club,” she said in a light, conversational tone—which was a tone she was out of practice using. 

“Sometimes I like to check out the line, see who’s interested in me,” he replied. “My club, I mean.”

“Ugh,” she grimaced, taking another sip of beer. This asshole. 

“Mr. Camaro,” the guy with the cool moustache said, “are you visiting from out of town? I don’t believe I’ve seen a face like yours around the Strip.”

“You’ll have only seen a face like mine if you’ve been to Blossom. It’s a little town about an hour from here,” she responded drily, extremely aware of Henry Prince’s eyes on her. She turned her head abruptly, catching his gaze and holding it. “I believe you’ve been to Blossom, haven’t you?” 

She was glaring at him, couldn’t help it. This was possibly the guy the dwellers were after, the reason there were monsters in her town. And he was staring back at her, his brows slightly pinched, his eyes narrowing as he tried to place her—him. 

“Not for a long time,” he finally answered. “But enough about me, Ephie. Let’s play cards.”

“It’s Ephraim,” she grated through clenched teeth. 

He nodded agreeance and started dealing, and that’s when—to her extreme horror—she realized what she’d done. Which was get herself invited into a card game when she had absolutely no idea how to play cards. 

“What’s the game?” she asked, nonchalant, hoping the sweat on her forehead wasn’t obvious. 

“Omaha,” answered Prince, doling out the cards with expert finesse. “You know how to play, don’t you?”

He was challenging her, poking her, knew she’d been looking for him and wanted to humiliate her for it. 

“Of course I know how to play,” she breezed. “It’s my favorite game.” 

“That’s right,” he said, smiling. “How could I forget?”

He was almost done passing out cards. Shit, shit, shit. 

With a sudden burst of inspiration, she shot to her feet. All eyes shifted to her, the crazy guy who had infiltrated their game and was now disrupting it. “Before we start, I have to use the bathroom.”

“You do, do you?” Prince asked smugly.

“You know me,” Ephraim shrugged. “Small bladder.”

The oily bearded man took pity on her; maybe his bladder was small too. “There’s a private bathroom through there,” he said, pointing to a door she hadn’t noticed before, half hidden behind a tall plant. “Might as well go before we start.”

“I need to order another drink anyway,” agreed Ugly Jacket. 

“Let’s reconvene in five minutes, then,” Prince announced, not taking his eyes off her. 

She was afraid for a moment that he would try and follow her into the bathroom, but all he did was remain at the table, chatting with Moustache.

She slapped a few tree fronds out of her way and slipped into the single toilet bathroom. It was bigger than her entire office, and worth probably three times as much. There was a shower, for Christ’s sake, one of those waterfall ones, and the floors and walls weren’t tiled, but covered in smooth, earthy stones. There were ferns hanging from the ceiling, where more glow in the dark stars were stuck. The music playing was a mixture of Nature Sounds and Toto’s “Africa”. The toilet was hidden behind a large berry bush, but she didn’t need that. She headed to the mirror instead, which took up the entirety of the left wall, floor to ceiling. 

Even in the blue and green mood-lighting, she looked pale as she reached into her pocket and pulled out the ear piece. She shoved it into her ear and paced the stone floor, which had fake moss growing over certain bits. She felt like she’d just stumbled into a Holodeck. 

Fighting a feeling of foolishness, she pressed at the earpiece and whispered, “Noltan? Are you there?”

There was nothing. 

“Noltan. Answer me, damn it.”

She startled when the buzz sounded in her ear, and sagged in relief when she heard the kid’s voice chime through the piece. 

“Ephraim? Are you there?”

“Obviously,” she rasped. “I found our guy, but I’ve run into a spot of trouble.”

“What’s going on?”

“I need to know how to play Omaha. Like, right now.”

“Okay, okay…um, is that Counting Crows?”

“What?”

“You mean the song, right?” he asked, sounding as panicked as she was beginning to feel. 

“No, idiot, the poker game. Oh my god.”

There was a rustling and then Lav’s voice was in her ear, smacking on gum and sounding pleased as hell. “I know how to play Omaha,” she said. “Why are you playing cards? Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

She wanted desperately to slam her fist into the mirror. “Just tell me how to play the stupid game. You’ve got, like, three minutes.”

“There’s no way you can learn in three minutes,” was her unhelpful response, followed by an even more unhelpful chuckle. “What card games can you play?”

“I don’t know. I have better things to do than play cards, okay?” She scowled at her reflection, was angry she couldn’t hate Lav with all her being because she’d given her a fantastic haircut. “Last time I played, it was Go Fish, I guess.”

“Hmm.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means, ‘I hope your life doesn’t depend on this card game’.”

“Lav, I swear to god—”

“All right, fine. How long do I have now?”

“Like, two and a half minutes, asshat.”

“Then listen fast, bitch. This is how you play Omaha.”

How to Play Omaha, According to Lav (given in a purposefully thick accent and spoken very fast)  
1\. Something about ‘Hole Cards’  
2\. Something about ‘Community Cards’  
3\. Something Ephraim didn’t catch at all  
4\. Oh, god, what did she just say?  
5\. Pot limits?  
6\. Stay focused on…did she say ‘nuts’?  
7\. Something about ‘Blockers’  
8\. Bluffing is important. Good, okay, Ephraim knew that one already  
9\. If confused, use seduction to get out of a bad hand…wait, what?  
10\. “Are you getting all this, Ephie?”

“Um…huh?”

“I said, did you get all that?” Lav repeated. 

There was a knock on the door, followed by a, “You okay in there, Eph? We’re about to get started.” It was Prince and he was just outside the door, waiting for her, like a jackass.

“Just a sec,” she called. She paced to the opposite wall and crouched between the toilet and the berry bush. Crickets chirped from the speakers. This place was too weird, and if Prince was its creator, she was suspicious of his sanity. “Lav,” she whispered, “I’m gonna keep the earpiece in. I need you to help me get through this card game.”

“But we’re next in line at the donut shop,” she complained. 

“Lav.”

“Fine! I’ll be right here.”

Ephraim left the scant comforts of squatting behind a bush and went back to the huge mirror. The earpiece was definitely noticeable, but Lav had left enough hair on the sides to discreetly cover the ear in question. Ephraim fussed with it as long as she could before there was another knock on the door. 

“Did you fall in?” came Prince’s snarky voice. Even if he wasn’t the prince the dwellers were after, she was pretty sure she would still find time to kick his ass before the night was through. 

“Coming,” she yelled, giving herself a final, semi-panicked sweep before opening the door. Showtime.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things. Since archive won't let me italicize for some reason, conversation from Lav and Colton over the earpiece is marked by an asterisk. * Just so there's no confusion.
> 
> Also. Very important. I actually love Barry Manilow. And yes, I'd just binged My So-Called Life when I wrote this, and yes, I am a big ol' nerd. 
> 
> Violence in this chapter, and probably every chapter that follows.

He was waiting for her, greeting her with a lift of his eyebrows, which were the same cool blond as his hair. “Get lost?” he asked. 

“No,” she snapped. “Probably got poison ivy though.” 

*“Ooh, are you talking to him?”*

Ephraim ignored the voice in her ear and swept past Prince to her seat. She almost took another sip from her beer before remembering it was dumb to drink something that had been unsupervised around a bunch of men she didn’t know. So she pushed it aside, wanting nothing more to do with it. 

Prince took his seat beside her, and once Moustache was situated and passing out cigars—which Ephraim accepted to be polite—the cards were reshuffled and re-dealt. 

She waited for a clue from the others before picking up her downward facing cards and taking a peak. She had a King, a nine, two sevens, and absolutely no idea what she was expected to do next. Luckily, Lav did. 

*“Do you have your hand? What is it?”*

Ephraim grunted once, hoping it accurately conveyed her frustration. 

*“Oh right, you can’t say. All right, just wait a minute.”*

Like she had a choice. Prince was watching her over his cards, and of course he was facing her side with the earpiece in it. She really wanted to adjust it, but didn’t dare. 

“Sure you want to play?” he asked her while the others were still busy examining their own hands. 

*“Is that him? He sounds cute. Is he cute?”*

“Yes,” Ephraim said, answering Prince’s question and not Lav’s, but Lav didn’t know that. 

*“I knew it,”* she said. *“He sounds tall. I bet he’s really tall.”*

She was beginning to think asking for Lav’s help was a mistake, grunting again to show her disapproval. Prince did that singular-eyebrow-lift thing, and she met it with an eye roll, which he must have found entertaining because he smiled big, flashing straight white teeth. 

The game commenced, and somehow, she didn’t completely flub everything up immediately. Mostly, she copied what Moustache was doing. It wasn’t complicated, per se, just confusing, as her brain had never had space in it to remember card game rules. It was a lost, uncomfortable, floundering feeling, playing a game she had no idea how to play. 

*“No matter what your hand looks like, bluff your ass off,”* Lav commanded in her ear, and she did, sitting back with her ankles crossed, relaxed, acting with all her might that she was a badass Omaha player who didn’t have a French Canadian (?) yammering in her ear about wanting to know how big Prince’s feet were. 

She miraculously managed the first round without being discovered as a fraud, even if Prince was already onto her. He must have been, with the way he kept staring at her and smiling. 

He was frustratingly good, by the looks of it, winning the first two hands with little fuss. There was a moment when Oily Beard seemed close to a winning hand (by Ephraim’s poor estimate, anyway) but Prince won in the end when Oily folded unexpectedly. She wouldn’t have thought it strange until it happened again. And again. 

The pot would fill with chips, lots of chips, and then the other men at the table would fold, one by one. Ephraim would fold, too, because she was a copycat and didn’t know what the hell she was doing. More and more chips were pulled in by Prince’s big forearms, until there was a pile of blue and red and white towering in front of him. A castle made of chips for a prince made of bullshit. 

*“Stop folding so early, like a weak little man”* Lav spat after the fifth hand of the same ol’. *“Are you all cowards? Someone beat him. His hands haven’t even been that good.”*

That was true. When he placed his winning hands down and announced his cards, the others would groan, smacking themselves good-naturedly on the forehead, vowing to not let him win another one. But then, like clockwork, their cards would be slapped to the table, their chips would be taken, they would fold, and lose, and Prince kept winning, winning, winning. 

Then something unlikely happened. Ephraim was dealt her cards and they were four Kings. All of the Kings in the deck. She drew her one card from the community stack and pulled an Ace. She wasn’t exactly sure, but she was pretty sure this was a kickass hand. She knew it prevented Prince from having one of his fancy royal flush thingies. She knew there was a very good chance she could destroy him with this hand, and she wanted to destroy him. 

*“You haven’t grunted in a few minutes. Have you finally stopped sucking?”*

She didn’t respond to Lav, didn’t grunt. Prince was still looking at her, then looking at his cards, then looking at her. The game commenced and Oily Beard threw the rest of his chips in the center pot. So did Ugly Jacket and Moustache. When it was Ephraim’s turn, she found her hand moving to push the rest of her own chips to the center of the table, which was…interesting, since that hadn’t been her intention. 

“All in. I guess,” she said. 

*“All in? Oh my god, are you about to win? Finally. Noltan, don’t eat my donut!”*

For Prince’s turn, he pushed in all of his chips, too, his smile wicked. She didn’t know what this dude had done to get monsters after him, but if all he’d done was smile like this at them, she could relate. To the monsters.

Oily Beard folded his next turn, laughing with a groan as he reached for his end game cigar. “By George, you’ve done it again, Henry,” he said. 

Ephraim frowned, didn’t think anyone said “By George” anymore, or ever. She didn’t know what cards the man had had, but was it possible for him to have had such hopeless cards every single round? She had no plans of folding, that was for sure. Her hand was probably better than Prince’s, unless he was a cheater—and she wouldn’t be surprised if he was. 

One by one, they dropped from the game, Moustache and Jacket folding pathetically, lighting up their cigars, and leaning forward curiously, elbows on the table, as it came down to Ephraim and Prince. 

“Well, old friend,” Prince said. “What’ll it be? Do you have the balls to bet against me?”

She really wanted to punch him. Balls had nothing to do with any of it, whether she had them or not. “Yes,” she growled. 

“Really? You sure?”

“As sure as I am that you’re a dick,” she replied. 

*“Very clever,”* Lav said, now audibly chewing on what must have been a donut. 

“Then what are you waiting for?” Prince asked. With one hand, he kept his cards pressed against his chest. His other was tapping a beat against the table’s edge. 

She wanted to slam her cards down, face up. Wanted to see the look on his face when she beat his ass and scooped the mountain of chips into her arms. But…he was staring straight at her again, lashes fanning delicately around pale blue eyes. They were almost too pale, she was noticing for the first time. 

*“Um, play your hand,”* Lav ordered in her ear. 

She took a deep breath through her nose. She was going to. She wanted—well, wait. Did she want to? All she really wanted was to cool down. Because suddenly she was very hot, felt stifled in her suit jacket. Her fingers were damp where they held tight to the cards. Her face was flushed, she was sure. And what did she care, really, about a stupid card game? She didn’t have to win this. There were other ways of getting to know Prince, plenty that didn’t require her to wear so hot a jacket. 

*“Earth to Ephie. What are you doing?”*

“Do you always take this long to commit to something?” Prince asked. 

She blinked at him, wondered how he knew. 

*“Ephie?”*

“Ephie?” Prince asked.

She set her cards on the table. Facedown. “I fold,” she whispered. 

The others laughed and clapped. Prince slapped her on the back before laying down his own hand. Three Jacks and two Queens. Not bad, but not as good as what she’d had. 

“Damn it,” she said, raking her fingers through her hair and tugging the strands out of place. The earpiece, momentarily forgotten even though Lav was currently voicing a steady stream of insults, became exposed when the meticulously placed lock of hair was shifted by her angsty fingers. She met Prince’s eyes, saw the moment they slid away from her face and to her ear, and then she remembered. She cursed, and stood abruptly from the table. 

His lack of interest made her question if he’d seen the earpiece at all, but she was already up, and she needed to get out of this room for her own sanity, needed a drink that wasn’t possibly contaminated. 

“Thanks for the game,” she said. “Where do I settle up?”

“Don’t worry about that now,” answered Prince, remaining in his seat and swigging the last of whatever was in his crystal tumbler. “I like to relish in the win before I bankrupt my friends.”

What a bastard. “I’ll excuse myself then, gentleman. I’m in need of something stiffer than anything I can find in this room.”

That earned her some laughs, even if Ugly Jacket had a sour look on his face. Without another glance at Prince, she left the room, trying not to walk too fast, but walking too fast anyway. When she reached the hallway, she realized just how stifling the backroom had been. Hastily readjusting her earpiece, she headed towards the main room. 

“Lav? Noltan? I’m out of the game and headed to the bar. Operation Beat Jackass at Omaha was a failure.”

There was a rustling and muffled bickering and then Noltan was back in her ear. *“We saved a donut for you.”*  
“Thanks,” she said, bee-lining to the bar. The club had gotten more crowded during the game, and “Fever Nights” was playing, the music a little louder than it’d been earlier, the room a little smokier. 

*“We found a spot across the street to park. Are you coming out?”*

“Hell no,” she answered, waving her hand at Toby to get his attention. He was mixing another margarita, so it was going to be a while. “I might have lost at cards, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still get what I want. I just need to find another way to get at Prince.”

Noltan sighed. *“Lav wants to know if you’ve considered—I’m not saying that, Lav—the, uh, route of seduction.”*

She hadn’t genuinely considered it, because gross. Just because someone was sort of good looking, didn’t mean she automatically wanted to jump their bones. She hadn’t jumped on bones, or anything else, for quite some time. Hadn’t needed it. Hadn’t wanted it. She didn’t require bone-jumping like so many others around her seemed to. She definitely wasn’t doing any jumping concerning Prince, except for maybe a jumping high kick to break his stupidly chiseled jaw. 

“Tell Lav to go screw herself,” she said. 

“Those are fighting words, friend.”

She spun, hands closing into fists. Prince was at her side, setting his empty tumbler on the bar and snapping fingers for Toby, who instantly stopped mixing his margarita and scampered towards their side of the bar. 

*“Is that him?”* asked Noltan, but before he could say anything else, Ephraim turned her head discreetly, and under the pretense of tucking a hair behind her ear, removed the bulky earpiece. She slipped it into her pocket, fifty percent positive he hadn’t seen her do it. 

“It’s funny,” Prince continued, smiling at Toby and holding up two fingers, as if that meant something. To Toby it must have, because he scampered off to fill two glasses and set them down in front of Ephraim and Prince with a shy grin. 

“Your face?” Ephraim asked, sniffing at the drink. It was citrusy, smelled faintly of vodka. 

Her insult rolled right off him. “Just that I think I would have remembered someone like you, if we’d ever met.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“I know I didn’t call you and invite you here,” he countered. “Not that I’m terribly upset you’ve shown up. Where did you get those shoes?”

“My closet. Where’d you get the impression I wanted to have a drink with you?”

He laughed, eyes lighting up, like he was thrilled every time she threw an insult his way. “Look. About the game. I don’t know who the hell you are, but you don’t have to make good on what you owe me, all right? I know I kind of trapped you in there. I couldn’t resist.”

“I can afford it,” she snapped. She could probably afford to buy the entire club out from under him and force it to play something better than—she strained her ears to listen to the newest beat—Cyndi Lauper? Okay, she actually liked Cyndi Lauper. “Eclectic musical tastes you’ve got here,” she commented. 

“You like it?”

“My ears are bleeding,” she said. 

He tapped his glass against hers and kept smiling, like he was genuinely pleased, like he was enjoying her prickly company, like she was flirting with him or something. Ephraim didn’t flirt. She devastated. Her shoulders were tensed and her lips were a straight, unbendable line. 

“Why were you trying to find me?” he asked, in a way that conveyed suspicion, but not enough to put his guard up, not like hers so clearly was. 

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said. “I just wanted to meet the owner of this place so I could tell him how much it sucks.”

“It’s not so bad here.” His eyes flickered to the ceiling. “I live upstairs.”

“So?”

“So. I have more music there. Maybe you’d like to pick something to play that won’t make your ears bleed.”

Oh, this was interesting. He wasn’t just flirting with her, he wanted to get her in his room. She tingled with the unusual request, unusual only because it was happening to her, and it never happened to her. She opened her mouth to turn him down, hard, but then remembered the whole point of Operation Vegas: find Prince, question him, and possibly hurt him. She’d found who might have been her Prince, but unless she got her shit together, questioning him the way she need to would prove difficult. She didn’t want to, but he’d provided her with an irresistible opening. She couldn’t refuse it. A better opportunity to get him alone was unlikely to present itself. 

“Got any Buffalo Tom?” she asked, because she had been watching My So-Called Life all day. 

“I might,” was his answer. And it was good enough for her. 

“Then show me upstairs,” she said. 

It was annoying when he didn’t look even a little bit surprised.

Going upstairs meant balancing their drinks through the now fully crowded club, disappearing through yet another previously-camouflaged-by-hanging-plants door, and walking up too many steps on a twisty staircase until they reached a landing. She began to wonder if Prince had some sort of greenery fetish, because there were potted plants literally everywhere, and when they went inside his apartment, there were even more. 

It was lavish digs that smelled fresh and clean and had the glow-in-the-dark stars painted on the ceiling, but they were more intricately crafted here. There were swirling colors amongst the constellations. Comets. She knew this because the lights were dimmed enough to see them, with only a couple of lamps turned on. 

She didn’t whistle in amazement, or give him any hint at all that she thought his place was kind of cool. She sneered at the coziness of his bookshelf-lined walls and turned up her nose at the carpet beneath her feet, which was so soft she felt like she was walking on a freaking cloud. She sipped her drink and casually eyed his collection of vinyls and cassette tapes, like it wasn’t impressive that he had hundreds of them on careful display beside a turntable with speakers bigger than her head. There was a boombox too, and she winced to see it was the same kind she had at home. Having something in common with this guy was not what she’d consider a plus. 

“What were you wanting to listen to again? Antelope Jim?” he asked, standing beside her, ice clinking musically in his glass. 

“Ugh.”

“Kidding. Here.” He went straight to a narrow shelf filled with cassettes and pulled one deftly from the stack. He handed it to her and she was surprised to see it was exactly what she’d been hoping to find. The right album with the right song. “That Jordan Catalano sure is dreamy,” he said, plucking the cassette back out of her hands and placing the tape in the boombox. 

“You don’t know that’s the song I was thinking of,” she huffed, embarrassed. 

“Please. That’s the only song of theirs anyone’s ever thinking of.” He played with the fast forward buttons, testing the tracks until he found the right one. 

“This wasn’t the song,” she lied, even though she could see Jordan Catalano walking towards Angela in the hallway behind her eyelids.

“Indulge me, then,” Prince replied, moving away from the boombox. His attention was all on her now, and she didn’t like the way he slinked towards her. Didn’t like his hooded eyes or small smile. A piece of his hair fell over his eyes, too long. He needed a haircut and she needed to get to business. 

“Are you from Vegas?” she asked, feigning interest in a wall painting of a cow in order to move away from him. 

“Not really,” he answered, following her to the cow. 

She stared harder at the cow, ignoring him just as hard. She examined the big dark eyes and the green grass beneath its hooves and the blocky signature in the corner that read: Prince. Unbelievable. “Ever been to Blossom?”

“Why? Is that where you think we met?” His eyes were on her, cow-dark. 

“It’s a small town about an hour from here. Blossom, Nevada,” she repeated slowly. “Have you been there or not?”

He laughed. At her, not with. “What’s with the fixation?”

“What’s with the evasion?”

He finished his drink, let it land sharply on the table beneath the cow painting. “You ever see me there?”

“No,” she answered. “But I’ve seen other things there. Was wondering if you’d seen them, too.”

His expression was strange. He was still smiling, but it was unnerving, where before it had just been obnoxious. She worried that maybe this wasn’t the right person. Henry Prince might have just been Henry Prince. She might have just wasted her entire night on the wrong person.

But she really didn’t think so, so she asked, “What were you doing ten years ago?”

A dizziness hit her, a stifling, overwhelming heat. Instinctively, she struck, backhanding Prince across his cheek, and yes, his jaw was as sharp as it looked. 

He staggered back, shocked. But he wasn’t as shocked as Ephraim, because as soon as she’d hit him, the dizziness left her. She cocked her head at him. Breathing hard. His gaze was impenetrable, lips still crooked in a smile, albeit a less confident one now. “Are you Prince,” she had to think for a second, because it was a weird name and she still didn’t feel right saying it, “Yrhen?”

Buffalo Tom crooned. The air conditioner whirred. The beat of music from the club vibrated her feet through the lush carpeting. Pale blue eyes widened, squinted, and closed. Prince released a heavy sigh, the kind that made his entire body sag. 

And then he snapped forward. 

She dropped her drink, ready for him, because she was always ready for the worst. She grabbed his reaching wrist and pulled it to her chest, bending it backwards and bringing him to his knees. It was easy, but he was a big guy, which meant it wasn’t easy keeping him down once she had him there. He escaped her grasp by barreling into her knees, sending them both sprawling to the floor. 

“Where are you from?” he growled, hands tightening around her throat, and no. No, that wasn’t going to work for her. 

She pushed her arms through his strangling hands and clawed at his face, aiming for the eyes. She’d pluck them right out of his head if she had to, and she wouldn’t feel bad about it. Sensing this exact thing was possible, he leapt off her, giving her room to regain her footing. She celebrated by punching him in the face. His back hit the cow painting, knocking it off the wall. 

“I’m from Blossom, asshole!” she sneered. “I told you, like, five times!”

He swung for her, his fist grazing her chin when she didn’t move fast enough. “You’re not human,” he accused, which was a weird thing to say. “Your disguise is good. I’ll give you that. But you’re not a man.”

“That’s right,” she agreed, rubbing a trickle of blood from her chin. Her lip was bleeding; she wondered when that had happened. “I prefer she/her lately. You have a problem with that?”

“That’s not what I—really?” He looked her up and down.

She shrugged. Punched him in the throat. While he was busy reeling from the unexpected blow, she went ahead and hit him again. It was satisfying, watching him land flat on his ass, but as much as she might have liked to, she didn’t have time to keep this up much longer. Before he could stand, she kneed him in the nose. 

“Come on,” he groaned, cradling his nose with his hand. 

While he was occupied with the blood pouring from his nostrils, she unbuckled her belt and pulled it out with a crack of leather. 

“You’re kidding,” Prince said, bucking against her as she straddled his waist to get the belt secured around his torso and the table leg behind him. 

She went for his buckle next, sliding it from the loops of his jeans. “I’m not kidding,” she snapped, bringing his hands away from his nose and tying his wrists in his lap. She moved away, then, had already lingered too close for too long. In a crouch, she remained at his feet. He pulled his knees up against his chest, and when he smiled at her, it was bloody. Another bout of dizziness hit her and she gave her head a shake. Took a deep breath. Leaned forward to smack Prince across the face as hard as she could. Blood splattered across his nice carpet, but her dizziness stopped. 

“Yrhen,” she said. 

His tongue swiped slowly across his top incisors. “Yes?”

Heaving a sigh, she sat cross-legged in front of him, disbelieving. Noltan had found him. The man the dwellers were after. The man who might have been responsible for all her problems. The urge to hit him again was strong, so she smacked him in the shin, because it was the easiest to reach. 

“Ouch,” he said. 

“That’s the least of what I’m gonna do to you if you don’t answer my questions.”

His laugh was loud, thunderous in the apartment. In the background, the boombox continued to play her favorite song. 

“I need you to tell me what you know about Blossom. About the,” she hesitated, “the monsters there.”

“Monsters? Are you serious?” He laughed harder, coughing on some blood, spitting at the carpet to his side. She wondered why he didn’t spit at her. That’s what she would have done. “There’s no such thing as monsters.”

“There are monsters in my town, and they showed up ten years ago, and it was your fault, wasn’t it?” She was gearing up to hit him again, her adrenaline pumping. 

“There aren’t monsters in Blossom,” he spat. 

“Don’t lie to my face.” She stood, so she could tower over him. “They’re big and they’re many, and I’m covered in scars to prove it.”

“I’d like to see that.”

“And I’d like to know why they had your name in their mouths yesterday.”

His laugh had sunken in energy, but she felt like her nerves were on fire. 

“It’s not funny!” she yelled, stomping on his foot. “I’ve been dealing with this shit for an entire decade, and now I find out they’re in my town because of you. Looking for you! Tell me why.”

His nose had stopped bleeding, but he was already a mess. Bright red everywhere, bringing out the bright blue of his eyes. “Ephraim,” he began. “Miss Camaro.” His gaze drifted up and down her body again and she flexed beneath the attention, couldn’t help it. “You don’t have a monster problem.”

“You sound pretty damn sure of yourself.”

“That’s because I am damn sure. You don’t have a monster problem, you have an alien problem.”

She waited for it. For the laugh, for the wink, for the sign that he was just kidding. “You’re kidding, right?” she asked, after a minute had passed and he’d spent it just staring at her, unwavering. 

The tip of his hair—the piece hanging over his eyes because it was too long—was coated in blood from his nose. “Monsters are from storybooks. Aliens are from outer space.”

“Um, duh.”

“You’re telling me you believe in fairytales before you believe in alien life forms?”

She didn’t appreciate his tone. She wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t crazy for calling creatures with a billion legs and teeth as big as her head monsters. “What do you know about aliens?” she hedged, not sure if she believed him yet. But this was what she’d wanted. Answers, whether she believed them or not. 

“A lot,” he said. “Because I am one.”


	6. Chapter 6

It was her turn to laugh. “I’m sorry. Are you telling me that you’re an alien? Do I look like an idiot to you?”

“Technically, you’re an alien to me, too, so there’s that. See? We have something in common.” His teeth were stained red. Disgusting. He wasn’t out of this world; he was out of his mind. 

“Okay, say you are an alien—which is ridiculous, by the way—and the dwellers back home are aliens,” she began. 

“Dwellers?” he asked, showing off his one-eyebrow arch. 

“It’s what I call the monsters,” she explained, wary of this psycho and hoping two belts would keep him contained a while longer. He was acting docile for the moment, so maybe. “Say those things are aliens. Why the hell have they been looking for you in my town? And don’t feed me that ‘I’ve never been to Blossom’ bullshit.”

She didn’t like how knowing his smile was. 

“You obviously think I was there ten years ago,” he said. “So why don’t you tell me why that is?”

Ten years ago. Ten years. It had been so long, and no time at all. 

At her pause, he spoke again, voice going strange, softer than it’d been. “I sort of—well, I don’t want to say crash-landed—but I landed unexpectedly, but also kind of intentionally, on Earth, roughly ten years ago.”

“You landed?” she asked, nose wrinkling in confusion. “In, like, a spaceship?”

“You don’t see any wings, do you? How else would I have gotten here?”

She rubbed at her temples, still didn’t believe any of this was happening. “You’re an alien. You landed here ten years ago. In Blossom?”

“You’re obsessed with Blossom.”

“I’ve been keeping Blossom safe non-stop for years. So yeah, I’m obsessed. Tell me.”

“Yes, in Blossom,” he answered. “I landed in Blossom.”

“So—”

“Let me save us both some time here,” he cut in, straightening up as best he could while bundled tight in Ephraim’s belt. “I hate to brag, but I’m kind of important, intergalactically speaking. Your dwellers,” he scoffed around the word, “are mercenaries spanning a dozen species, all of whom are looking for me, all of whom want me dead or worse.”

She was hardly hearing any of it anymore. Ten years, ten years. “You crashed here,” she repeated. Slow. Boiling. So angry. “Were one of your mercenaries after you that night?” She remembered the height, the scales, the roar. Remembered the light going out of his eyes. They’d been coming home from the grocery store. She’d wanted chocolate milk and he’d made a special trip, just for her. 

“How do you know it was at night?” Prince asked. 

“It just seems like a spaceship should crash at night, that’s all,” she said, shaking the haunting images from her head. She’d dream of them later. “Answer my question.”

“About the mercenary?” When she nodded, he laughed again, spitting more blood onto his already ruined carpet. “If you’re asking if I came here alone, then no. I didn’t. And I’m sure as hell not the only one here now. Your Earth has been crawling with non-humans for a decade, and they’re all looking for me.” He smiled. “Happy now? Have I made your day? Answered all your questions?”

She moved towards him, felt the beginning of dizziness again. “Not even close,” she said. Then she punched him so hard, his head slammed back into the table’s edge. 

He looked at her in a daze, and then blinked at her twice before his head fell forward. She grabbed a tuft of his hair and pulled his head back. His eyes were shut, but he was breathing. Unconscious. The first time he’d been tolerable since they’d met. 

“You don’t look like an alien,” she said, examining his face before letting go of his hair and letting his head fall forward. 

The door burst open.

She was on her feet in a second, lifting the cow painting high, and ready to smash it down on an intruder’s head. When she saw it was only Lav and Noltan, she let it drop (even if she’d been tempted to throw it at Lav, just for fun). 

“You are alive, then,” Lav said, adjusting her sunglasses and kneeling down to stare at Yrhen. “We didn’t know, since you went radio silent with no warning.” She sounded almost upset, but mostly like a bitch, so Ephraim let it slide. 

Noltan was wandering around the open plan of the apartment, gawking at all the hanging plants and records, the suede couches and—something she hadn’t seen yet—a painting of a chicken, in the same style as a cow. It seemed Prince was some kind of farm animal weirdo, on top of everything else. “You could have let us know you were peacing out,” he said, also sounding almost upset, though slightly more upset than Lav.

“I told you guys I’d be fine, didn’t I?” she defended, almost feeling guilty. “And look, totally fine.”

“Your lip is bleeding,” Lav commented. She was still knelt beside Prince, poking at his head with her long nail. “I assume this is our guy. Hmm. He does have big feet.”

“That’s Henry Prince,” Ephraim said, arms crossed as she surveyed her unconscious enemy. “Or Prince Yrhen. Whatever. His feet are normal sized.”

“Did you question him?” Noltan asked, leaving the chicken painting so he could poke a tentative foot into Prince’s thigh. 

“A little. He was either semi-cooperative, or he was lying. Or he’s just crazy. Totally crazy.”

“Crazy pretty,” Lav mumbled, pulling out a candy cigarette to stick in her mouth. 

“Regardless of how attractive he is or isn’t,” Ephraim sighed, “he was saying some pretty farfetched stuff.”

They both looked at her, curious. 

“He said he’s an alien, basically. Says the dwellers are aliens, too, and that they’re after him. Like intergalactic hitmen or something. He called them mercenaries. It sounds really stupid.”

“Oh,” Noltan breathed, crouching down beside Lav to stare at Prince. “He is pretty.”

“He’s, like, average-pretty, you guys. Collect yourselves. He thinks he’s an alien.” They didn’t look nearly as freaked by that as she was. “Did you hear me? He told me he’s from outer space.”

“Yeah, but he’s, like, super built,” Noltan whispered. 

Beside him, Lav cackled. 

“Okay, I can see you two need to ogle him thoroughly before any actual discussions can be had. You’ll have ample time once we get his ass in the truck. Come on.” She unbuckled the belt that held his waist to the table leg, then went to his feet. She gave them a rough tug, and his body slipped down to the carpet, totally lax. 

“How do you propose we get him outside and into the truck without anyone noticing?” Lav asked, finally helping, if only so she could get her hands on Prince’s biceps. Suspiciously, Noltan took his other arm, squeezing tight over the band of thick muscle. 

“Technically, this is kidnapping,” he commented, even as he helped to drag Prince toward the door. “You kidnapped me yesterday, kind of,” he added thoughtfully. “Is this a thing you do often, Captain? Kidnap?”

“Did he just call you Captain?” Lav snorted. 

Ephraim dropped Prince’s feet in the center of his living room’s shag rug. “Should we roll him up in this carpet and tote him out?”

“Because that’s not suspicious.” Lav took the break from dragging Prince to reapply her lipstick. “Maybe we can put him in a wheelchair and roll him out? Give him some sunglasses.”

“This isn’t Weekend at Bernie’s. We can’t just roll an unconscious man covered in blood out of the club with no one noticing.”

“Well excuse me, Captain, for having a suggestion,” she harrumphed. “Let’s roll him up in a carpet, by all means. That sounds like a great plan.”

“Um.” Noltan coughed into his hand until Ephraim and Lav were both glaring at him. “There’s a fire escape right through there.” He pointed behind his back, where, through a large window between a pig and a horse painting, was the clear outline of clanky, metal stairs. “Why don’t we just take him that way?” He blushed. “We can still wrap him up in the rug, if you want. It’s a really nice rug. It’d look good in the office.”

The fire escape looked lived-in. There was a full ashtray balanced on the rail and a candy wrapper pushed halfway into an abandoned beer. It had the air of a place where someone stood or sat often, possibly looking at the stars, even though you could never see them in Vegas. 

The stars were always bright in Blossom. 

The stairs were narrow and steep, and they swayed under the weight of three people as they struggled to carry a fourth, but they were better than nothing, and after ten breathless minutes of maneuvering, they’d gotten Prince to the alley beside the club. 

Noltan helped prop him against the brick wall before declaring he’d fetch the truck and bring it around. 

“Be inconspicuous,” Ephraim chided as she wiped sweat from her brow. 

“Should I wrap the truck in a rug?” he asked, smiling shyly before he jogged out of the alleyway. 

“He’s kind of a smartass, isn’t he?” Lav asked, her voice fond. 

“Yeah, or he’s been hanging out with you too much.” Ephraim leaned down to check Prince’s pulse and make sure he was still out. It was steady and a little too fast, but he wasn’t conscious. Pink drool dribbled from the corner of his lips. 

“Did he say what he was doing here?” Lav asked, leaning against the wall, nails tapping the brick. Ephraim had no idea how she’d managed the fire escape in heels that high. 

“In Vegas?”

“On Earth,” Lav corrected. 

Ephraim groaned. “You think he was telling the truth? You think he’s an alien and not some weirdo?”

“Why can’t he be both?”

Good question. She kept staring at him, couldn’t seem to stop. The things was, he looked like a human dude. In better shape than the average human, maybe, but still human. And the dwellers? They looked like monsters. 

“It doesn’t add up,” she decided. “He’s gotta be lying.”

Noltan pulled the truck onto the street directly in front of the alley. He had the windows rolled halfway down, and essence of Pearl Jam floated through the night air. 

Lav rolled her shoulders, cracked her knuckles, and bent down to grab under Prince’s arms while Ephraim toted his feet. Noltan got out of the truck and threw open the backseat. It was small, and there was hardly room for a normal sized person, let alone Prince’s bulky, tall figure, but they manhandled him until he fit. Ephraim took the extra belt and, after getting way too into his business, managed to slink it around his waist, tugging his already tied wrists and fastening his arms to his sides. If he woke up on the drive back, he wouldn’t be able to strangle anyone from the backseat. Theoretically. 

She demanded the window seat this time, so Noltan was back behind the wheel and Lav was crushed between them on the way to Blossom. Lav complained about the music and Noltan kept breaking his neck to check the backseat, like he was expecting Prince to randomly and miraculously disappear. Ephraim rolled her window all the way down and let her hand cup the wind, taking it up on the breeze and then crashing it back down. 

It wasn’t late yet, not really; when they pulled into the front of Camaro Exterminations it wasn’t yet midnight. Timewise, it had been a pretty successful mission so far. 

She twisted in her seat and slapped Prince. He was still unresponsive. “This isn’t realistic,” she said, kicking open the truck door and jumping out. She’d shed her jacket on the ride and left it there, crumpled on the seat, Lav scooting over it to get out. “I didn’t even hit him that hard. Why is he still knocked out?”

“Maybe he has a sensitive alien skull and you brain-damaged him for life,” Lav pointed out, peering at Prince through the window. 

The westward sky lit up with a flash of distant lightning, the clouds rumbling ominously. 

“Let’s get his brain-damaged ass inside before the bottom falls out,” Ephraim said. 

Together, they hoisted him out of the backseat. Noltan cursed when he banged Prince’s head against the door. 

They got him inside. Ephraim flicked on the lights and shut the blinds. The office was cold; the air conditioner had been left on full blast while they were gone, and the chill felt fantastic on her night-warm skin. 

“Should we lay him on the couch?” asked Noltan, already trying to steer his portion of Prince towards his makeshift bed.

“You don’t want alien blood on your pillow, do you? Put him in the spinny chair.”

They plopped him down, and Ephraim fetched rope from her weapons chest. Tied him up quickly and tightly. Put her scuffed up penny loafer on his thigh and gave him a kick, sending the chair into a spin. He would have gone faster if his legs weren’t so long, his feet dragging down his speed.

Lav put a hand on the back of the chair, stilling it. She’d pulled a wine cooler out of nowhere and was sipping it with a pink crazy straw. Noltan was standing beside her, doing the same. They were both watching Ephraim and Prince with intense interest. 

“Now what?” Lav asked, slurping through the bendy straw. “We torture him for information?”

“We torture him for information,” Ephraim agreed, reaching forward and pinching Prince’s cheek. 

Lav reached around her and grabbed his hair, giving his head a shake. 

Noltan waved his wine cooler in front of Prince’s nose, trying to tempt him with the scent of raspberry-melon. 

When none of it worked, Ephraim grabbed his face with both hands, digging her fingertips into his scalp. “Yrhen,” she said. “Yrhen!”

His breath hitched. And then his eyes opened: glacial blue, pupils small, lashes fluttering. It took him a moment to register her, and then register Lav and Noltan standing behind her. It took a few more moments for his back to stiffen and his upper lip to curl into a snarl. 

“You again?” he asked smoothly, like he hadn’t spent the last hour tied up in the back of a truck. “Am I dreaming?” He licked his lips, eyebrows lifting in surprise. “Can I get a wet cloth for my face? Covered in blood isn’t really my preferred look for a first date.” He winked. 

Ephraim slapped him. “You’re in Blossom,” she said, smiling when his eyes widened in what she hoped was fright. “Scared?”

“Less scared, more pissed off,” he replied. “I already told you the truth about your monsters. What else can I do for you?”

“Noltan,” she said, snapping her fingers, “go to my weapons chest. Bring me that small saw. The one with the pink handle.”

Lav clapped her hands in delight. “So you did like your birthday present! I knew it.”

“Lav,” Ephraim grated, “go water Harry and give me a minute alone with the prince.”

It wasn’t really a minute alone, considering the chair was only a few feet from the desk where Harry sat, but she needed the reprieve from Lav’s smirking, perfectly lipsticked face. Lav did as directed, sitting on the edge of the desk and picking Harry up by the pot to coo sweetly into its leaves. 

When Ephraim turned from the strange scene and back to Prince, she gasped, because Prince was out of his seat, straining his muscles until the ropes snapped off his body and the chair fell to the floor. With his unrestrained hands, he grabbed Ephraim by the shoulders, picked her up, and half-threw, half-placed her out of his way. In the doorway, Noltan yelped, dropping the pink saw in his hand. Prince rushed at Lav and grabbed the potted plant. 

“Hey!” she yelled. 

Prince lifted Harry above his head, smiling like a madman. “Are you the one behind this?” he bellowed. 

Ephraim crept closer. If she could get close enough, she could take him down. “Calm down,” she said. “Put down the houseplant.”

“Houseplant?” he laughed. “Houseplant? Oh, that’s rich. He’s a plant, all right, but not in the way you think. Or do you?” 

“Huh?” 

“Put Harry down!” Lav cried, lip trembling. 

“I’ll put him down,” Prince said. “It’ll be my pleasure.” He slammed Harry’s ceramic pot against the side of the desk. It cracked and shattered, clay breaking all over the floor. 

Noltan screamed. Lav clapped her hands over her mouth. And Ephraim…she had no words for what she saw, because hanging from the greenery held in Prince’s fist was a dangling, hideous creature with slithering, root-like legs, mossy green eyes, and a gaping, fang-filled mouth. And how does one react to something like that?

Prince shook Harry by the leaves. “A Mirdyan spy!” He swung it towards Ephraim, so she could get a better look. There was a thump from somewhere behind her, and she was pretty sure it was Noltan fainting. “How can you claim to be ignorant of aliens when you’re literally surrounded by them?”

“I obviously didn’t know the plant was an alien spy,” Ephraim said, feeling a bit lightheaded herself. Harry was gnashing its teeth at her, and it was a very disturbing thing to witness. 

“I’m not just talking about this son of a bitch,” Prince growled, giving Harry another shake until it growled back. “You’re the only human in this room.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, exchanging a confused look with Lav, then looking over her shoulder at Noltan, who was back on his feet but looking woozy. “How hard did I hit you?”

“Not nearly hard enough,” Prince answered. “Considering I’ve been awake this whole time. Stop squirming, spy,” he rasped, squeezing Harry’s leaves. 

Lav cried out and launched herself at Prince. She grabbed Harry out of his arms and held it tight to her chest. “You animal,” she gasped. “You’re hurting him! He’s not a spy anymore. He’s retired, and he’s my dearest friend, you—” She continued to speak, but not in any language Ephraim could understand. 

From the doorway, Noltan sputtered something in the same language, and Lav responded to him, a tear running down from beneath her sunglasses. 

“Once a spy, always a spy,” Prince remarked, sounding wired, the way Ephraim often sounded after killing a nest of dwellers. But he didn’t move to take Harry away from Lav. He only turned to Ephraim and crossed his large arms over his chest. “Are you really so oblivious of the people you surround yourself with?”

Ephraim felt her mouth working soundlessly. “I…I don’t make it a habit of surrounding myself with many people,” she finally managed, but her voice was faint. Embarrassingly fragile. 

“Maybe you should. Then you’d be able to tell the difference between a human and a Noturok.” He threw a thumb back at Lav. “Lose the shades. No one wears sunglasses at night except losers.”

She sniffled, her nose buried in Harry’s soft leaves. Its legs weren’t thrashing and slithering anymore, but relaxing comfortably in twists around her wrist. “Maybe I’m a loser.”

“I don’t know you well enough to say, but I do know you’re a Noturok, so take off the shades.”

Lav complied, albeit with a shaky hand. For the first time ever, Ephraim saw what Lav looked like without sunglasses obscuring half her face. 

“Jesus Christ,” she gasped, staring at her assistant. “You’re not human.”

“No,” Lav admitted, fixing her swirling indigo eyes on Ephraim. They were glowing. They were hypnotizing. They were slanted and cat-like and big. Pretty. Astonishingly pretty, and terrifying. “I’m a Noturok. I’m here to work on my thesis. The subject is Earth Mating Habits. I started working for you undercover, hoping to get some decent material, but it’s not really worked out very well, since, you know, you’re terrible at mating.”

Ephraim cringed, felt her face going hot. “I don’t believe this.”

“Neither do I,” Prince said, looking her up and down with a grin. “You don’t look like you’d be all that terrible.”

“You,” she said, pointing a finger at his chest, “shut up.” 

“Um,” came a soft voice from behind her. It was Noltan, and he’d left the doorway to stand at her side. “Don’t shut up quite yet, please. You said Ephraim was the only human in the room. Well, I’m human, so. You’re wrong.”

“Yeah,” Ephraim seconded. “The kid’s human.” He had to be. She’d seen his trailer park, seen him get beaten up by his dad. What was more human than that? 

“He’s not human,” Prince assured them, not an ounce of self-doubt on his bloody face. 

“I’m not an alien,” Noltan insisted. 

“I didn’t say you were.” Prince stepped closer, leaned in slow. He sniffed, nose twitching. “Synthetic,” he said. “Interesting.”

“Synthetic,” Noltan repeated quietly. He crossed to his couch and sat down without another word. 

Ephraim slapped Prince’s arm. “You asshole. You can’t go around accusing plants of being spies and calling kids synthetic. Who do you think you are?”

“You already know that much. I’m Prince Yrhen.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” she asked, running her hands through her hair, wondering how this day had turned into such a night. Over his shoulder, Lav’s eyes were still shining and swirling. 

“It means I’m a prince,” he told her slowly. 

“A space prince?”

“Silence!” shouted a voice Ephraim had never heard before. Her eyes darted around the room for the intruder and landed on Harry, who had squirmed out of Lav’s arms and was now kneeling on the floor at Prince’s feet, bowing his leafy head. “Yrhen, son of Lockhart, son of Garrage, savior of Osworth, protector of the Outer Rim, Prince of the Thirty Moons, future leader of Castinof. I have waited for you here, in hopes of glimpsing your fair visage, and I swear my loyalty to you here and now. I was a spy once, that much is true, but I am not the same Mirdyan I once was. I am Harry, of Lav, Houseplant of Camaro Exterminations, and I would lay down my life to protect yours, your Highness.”

“Woah,” Noltan whispered from the couch. 

Lav scooped him back into her arms and whispered something into his leaves. To Yrhen, she said, “You owe me a pot, your Highness.”

He waved a hand at her. “Fine. It’s fine.”

“Nothing is fine,” Ephraim said, beyond irritated. “My assistant is an alien, the plant can talk, the kid’s synthetic, and you’re prince of the moon. That’s not fine, it’s insane! Am I having a stroke?” She stalked past Yrhen, slamming hard into his shoulder, and stopped in front of Lav. “You’re seriously an alien?”

She pointed at her eyes and rolled them. “Totally not from Earth. Sorry.”

Ephraim felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. It was unpleasant but not unfamiliar. She just never expected to feel it because of Lav. “Did you know the dwellers were aliens this whole time?” she asked. “Did you know they were after Yrhen this whole time? Did you just let me go on like this without knowing?” It was a crushing feeling; that was a good way to describe it. 

“I knew they were aliens,” Lav began, “but I didn’t know what they were after. I suppose I should have guessed.” She glanced past Ephraim at Yrhen. “You’re pretty notorious, even on Noturok.”

He shrugged, buffing his nails on his blood-stained shirt. 

“Look at me, Ephie,” Lav continued. She set Harry down on the desk, his rooty legs curling his body into a ball. “I couldn’t just show you who I was. You would have freaked out, and I needed the job for my research paper.” She frowned. “Plus, Earth is expensive.”

“Lav,” Ephraim pleaded. 

“When you came in here talking about Prince Yrhen, I didn’t think it could possibly be the same Prince Yrhen. No one’s seen or heard from him in forever. How was I to know he was on the same planet as me, an hour away?”

“Yrhen isn’t an uncommon name, where I’m from,” Yrhen added. “The confusion is understandable.”

When Ephraim turned to glare at him, he had gotten his hands on a wine cooler and was sipping it with a neon orange straw. “This is all your fault,” she said, moving close enough to press a hand against his chest, pushing him, even though he didn’t budge. “People are dead because of you coming here and living it up in Vegas. You have to go.”

“Go?” He set his drink aside and cracked his knuckles. “I already left Blossom. Even if I left Earth, what makes you think they’d stop looking for me here?” 

“Then go, and let them see you go. I don’t care. Just get the hell off my planet and out of my town!” She shoved him again, her blood heating up, her breaths coming faster. 

“I like it here,” he argued, his own breaths quickening and his pupils expanding. “I have a home here, and I’m not leaving just because a random woman off the street tells me she can’t handle a few mercenaries on her playground.”

She punched him in the face, wondered if that would ever get old. “I’ll tie you up and leave you for them to feast on,” she hissed, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and hauling him closer, going for intimidating, even if he was a head taller. “Take your cow paintings and your Barry Manilow and get lost.”

He’d proven he could flex until ropes broke around his biceps, so she wasn’t entirely sure why he was allowing her to jostle him like this, but he was, remaining tense while she held him, but not trying to escape. He looked down at her with heavy, glistening eyes, looked at her until her grip loosened. “I can’t just go home,” he said. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“I get that,” she replied. “But you don’t have to go home. You just have to go anywhere but here. Leave Earth.”

He shook his head. 

Her fingers left his collar, but stayed by his throat, lightly lingering over the skin there, skin that felt human. “Don’t you see?” she asked, softer than she’d ever asked anything, because she really needed him to get it. “People are dead because of what you’ve done. Don’t you care?”

“If I cared about every person that was dead because of me, I’d be dead, too,” he answered. 

It wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear.

And then the front windows of Camaro Exterminations shattered, and a team of dwellers stormed through.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're deep in the crazy now. Is anyone still with me?

Ephraim and Yrhen broke apart. She picked up the swivel chair and threw it at the dweller skittering towards her. It was one of the white ones, with all the clawed legs that she’d killed in that lady’s basement the other day, and it looked at her like it knew she’d killed all its friends. The chair hit it and bounced off, doing no damage, just riling it up worse. It charged, slicing for her. Yrhen pushed her out of the way, grabbed it by the neck and threw it back through the window, where it took down three other dwellers clambering inside over the broken glass. 

She ran towards the door of her bedroom, grabbing Lav in one hand and Noltan in the other, dragging them back and pushing them into the room. Lav flashed her indigo eyes, reached into Ephraim’s weapons chest, and tossed her the sword she’d gotten at the Renaissance Festival a few years ago. 

“I’ll protect Nolty,” she said, her acrylic nails suddenly looking far more lethal than tacky. 

Ephraim glanced at the kid—the one who was supposedly synthetic—and waited for him to meet her eyes and nod shakily before she dashed back out into the main office, slamming the bedroom door shut behind her. Yrhen was trying to hold them all back, but a tall dweller, like the ones from the park, was angling towards him, creeping up on his blind side. 

Ephraim lunged, striking the creature with her blade. Its skin sliced and it grumble-grumble-growled, and turned its attack on her. 

That’s when she saw it. The thing that made Prince Yrhen definitively not human. As the dweller swung for her, and Ephraim ducked it, Yrhen’s shirt ripped open down the spine—ripped open because a dozen long spikes were shooting out of his skin. He swung his fist at the dweller’s head, downing it with a single hit, because spikes had also sprouted from his knuckles, as well as across the top of his shoulders. 

She staggered away from him in shock—he really is an alien—and sliced her way through another dweller, this one short and squat but spitting venom. Some of it got on her arm, burning her skin. She roared, pissed off, and hastily wiped it on her pants, ruining her suit. Her skin was bubbling red, but the dweller was already dead, its venom nothing compared to a sword through the brain. 

There were dead dwellers all around them, splayed over the desk and bleeding out on Noltan’s couch, but there were still more climbing through the windows, dripping wet from the storm that had finally broken outside. The thunder was loud and the rain was beating hard on the asphalt outside the office.

She didn’t see the dweller coming for Yrhen’s throat, and neither did he. But Harry did. The ex-spy/ houseplant/alien jumped through the air, clear across the room, and latched its tentacle legs around the mercenary with its teeth already bared to rip out Yrhen’s throat. The dweller screamed at the contact, and then Ephraim and Yrhen did notice, because Harry was pumping something into the dweller’s skin, making it turn black, its arm rotting quickly beneath Harry’s touch. 

“Thank you,” Yrhen said, throwing up a quick salute to his newly devoted friend. 

Harry squeaked out a reply, but it was drowned out by the agonized screams of the dweller, who swiftly fell on its back, thrashing and rotting from the inside out. 

“Jesus Christ,” Ephraim muttered, spinning to find her next assailant. Yrhen was finishing off two more by the windows, but the only other things left alive in the office were him, Harry, and herself. “We’re clear,” she said, running for the bedroom. 

“We won’t be for long,” said Yrhen, his spikes receding back into bone. His face was still covered in the dried blood from Ephraim’s fists, and his pale eyes were wide with hyper-awareness. “There’ll be more. They found out I’m back in Blossom somehow.” His stare was accusatory. 

“Hey, I didn’t tell anyone I’d assaulted and kidnapped a nightclub alien, if that’s what you’re implying,” she said, swinging open the door and waving for Lav and Noltan to come out. Noltan had acquired the nail covered bat from the weapons chest and Lav was crouched in a protective stance in front of him, white skirt riding way up on her thighs, lips perfectly glossed. 

“What are we doing?” she asked, taking Noltan’s hand and leading him past Ephraim into the destroyed office. “Harry,” she cooed, and the plant leapt up into her arms, winding its tentacles around her shoulder and perching there like a goddamn parrot. 

“We’re going,” Yrhen answered, already walking out into the rain. The bell above the door jingled. 

“Are we going, Ephie?” Lav asked, still holding tight to Noltan’s hand. Synthetic or not, the kid was scared. Even if he did a decent job of putting up a brave front, Ephraim knew the look in his eyes for what it was: total terror. 

Through the window, she watched as Yrhen kicked at the front tire of the truck. Then he turned to her, his arms raised. “What are you waiting for?” he shouted.

She sighed. “I guess we’re going. If there are more coming, I don’t know if I can fight them all on my own.”

“Let’s not find out, then.” Noltan pointed out to the parking lot, where a mass of shadowy figures were passing under a streetlamp. More dwellers. Headed for the office. 

Yrhen slapped the hood of the truck. “Keys would be useful!” 

“Kid, you have the keys?” Ephraim asked. 

Noltan threw them to her, and she ran outside, throwing them to Yrhen. He caught them and slipped into the driver’s seat, sticking them in the ignition with one hand, while the other lifted up his wet shirt to wipe at his face, cleaning off some of the blood. “Hurry up,” he grunted as they piled into the truck. 

Ephraim was pushed flush against his side as Noltan and Lav both attempted to squeeze into the passenger seat. “Can one of you get in the back? I am literally in this guy’s lap right now,” she complained. 

“Not quite literally,” Yrhen said, tires screeching as he backed up and hauled ass out of the strip mall parking lot, passing at least twenty furious alien mercenaries on the way. 

Noltan clambered noisily and clumsily into the backseat, and then Ephraim had enough space to shove Yrhen’s shoulder and shift closer to Lav, who was fixing her makeup in the visor mirror, seemingly oblivious to the herd of dwellers chasing them down the road.

“There’s an entire herd of dwellers chasing us down the road!” Ephraim stated. “How did they find you here so fast? We just got back to town.”

“Your Highness, I believe I saw a Gehkew Hound amidst the ranks of invading mercenary species,” Harry said, still twined around Lav’s shoulder. 

Ephraim side-eyed him, still not sure how she felt about all this, talking plants especially. 

“Yeah, I thought so,” Yrhen grunted. At Ephraim’s lost look, he explained, “The Gehkews are well known for their sense of smell. They must have picked up on the royal scent, since I’m covered in my own blood. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Did you just say royal scent? Do princes smell that different from everyone else?”

“We have a specific base note in our scent.” The windshield wipers were going a mile a minute, the truck going faster than it probably should. They were lucky the roads were empty, that it was a stormy weekday night. “I’m told it’s similar to the aroma of freshly baked bread.”

“You smell like just another asshole to me,” she quipped. Her face went red immediately after. 

He smiled at her and let the implication fester. It was Lav who had to speak up and, with a cackle, ask, “Have you been close and personal with a lot of assholes, Ephie?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “You tell me. You’re the one who’s been writing a research paper on my mating habits.” 

Lav shut up, chastised, and for a few minutes, there was only the sound of rain beating on the roof of the truck and tires on the wet road. Yrhen took them out of downtown, which wasn’t hard to do and didn’t take long, since downtown Blossom was only four blocks of shops, Ephraim’s abandoned strip mall included.   
When they turned down the road Ephraim knew would lead them out into desert, she twisted around in her seat to join Noltan in peering out the rain-covered back window. 

“There must be fifty of them behind us,” she said, trying to remain calm but secretly losing her mind. She’d faced a dozen dwellers in a basement before, yeah, but those had been newborn, fresh-out-of-the-sac monsters, not fifty mercenary aliens out for the blood of the guy sitting next to her. 

“I know,” Yrhen answered, pressing harder on the gas pedal. 

“You must have done something really bad,” she said. “To have all those things after you.”

Lav snorted. “I’ll say.”

Yrhen slapped his hand on the steering wheel, then smoothed it, just like he smoothed his flare of temper. “Yeah,” he said. “Something really bad happened.”

She wanted to know what, but she knew as well as he did that now wasn’t the right time for more questions. The truck was keeping ahead of the dweller horde, but not by much. If they got a flat or ran off the road, or anything, they’d catch up within a minute. Or less. And that wouldn’t be ideal.

She met Noltan’s eyes in the backseat. Reached out and patted his knobby knee. Synthetic. Yeah right. 

“Do you have a plan?” she asked. “Because there’s nothing but desert this way, and I don’t see us losing them in the middle of the desert.”

“I have a plan,” Yrhen said. “We’re almost there. But when I stop the car, everyone has to move fast, got it?”

“Got it,” Noltan rasped. 

Lav sighed.

Harry saluted. 

Ephraim nodded sharply. 

The look he shot her was grim. “Get ready.”

He veered the truck off the main road, leaving the guiding glow of street lamps behind. He drove into the darkness without hesitance. 

“You’ve been this way before,” she guessed. 

“Many times,” he answered. 

“So you have been in Blossom over the past ten years. That’s why they keep searching for you here. They keep picking up your rich boy scent.”

“Says another rich boy.”

“Rich girl.”

“Boy, girl,” he huffed. “Doesn’t matter when you’re an evolved species. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, please, spare me. If your species is so evolved, how come I couldn’t get into your club unless I looked like a dude?”

“Honestly? I just liked the sound of ‘The Blue Rock Gentlemen’s Club.’ It was everyone else who took it too seriously.”

She bit her lip to keep from punching him in the face again. This guy was the worst. “Where are you taking us?” She checked the back window again, but couldn’t see much between the heavy rain and the fact that it was night time. 

“See that little cluster of trees?” He flashed the brights, illuminating the small oasis. 

“You’re kidding. That won’t hide us!” Noltan yelped from the backseat. 

Lav twisted around to pat his head. “Don’t worry, Nolty. Prince Yrhen is a murderer, but he’s good at hiding.”

“Murderer?” gasped Noltan. 

Ephraim’s eyes snapped back to Yrhen. “Murderer?” she asked, a sick feeling in her gut. 

Yrhen circled the truck around the bunch of trees. “You wanna get into that right now? Really?” He pulled the truck into park and slammed open the door, leaping out and not looking back. “Stay here wondering about my sordid past if you want. I’ll be over here, not dying.”

Lav stuffed Harry into the bust of her top, his leaves poking out like cleavage of greenery, then she hopped out of the truck, yanking Ephraim after her while Noltan escaped from the back seat. Over the torrential rain, the not-so-distant groans and grumbles of dwellers could still be heard, and at a glance, Ephraim saw giant, reflective eyes, flashes of red, glints of readying claws. They were coming. They were close. 

She and the others followed Yrhen’s path through the sparse gathering of trees. He was on the other side of a small, natural pond—small enough to leap over, big enough to give life in a lifeless place. 

“I hope your plan’s better than climbing a tree,” she warned, her sword pulled and ready. At her side, Noltan’s hands were shaking around the nail-covered bat and Lav was holding her hands over her head, as if that would protect her wig from the downpour. 

“Does she have an off-switch hidden somewhere?” he asked, looking past Ephraim at Lav. 

“No,” Lav smirked. “I’ve looked for it before when she was sleeping. She’s just like this. All the time.”

They laughed at the anger on Ephraim’s face, but the joke at her expense was short-lived. Yrhen’s face fell into deep concentration as he turned back to a barrier of fat leaves. He lifted his wrist to his mouth, whispering something, tapping it with impatient fingers. Then he pushed the leaves out of the way. 

Noltan gasped. “Is that a door?”

Ephraim blinked at what was clearly a door. “It doesn’t go anywhere,” she surmised, because it was attached to nothing. It was just a door, metallic and black, leaned against some trees in the middle of nowhere. 

Yrhen ignored her, kept tapping on the little band around his wrist until it lit up with red and green lights. A second later, the door lit up with red and green lights, too. “About time,” he murmured, pressing his palm flat to the door. He pushed and the door slid open, then he disappeared inside. 

Lav was right behind him, leading Noltan through with her hands on his shoulders. Ephraim stood on the outside, staring. She could hear snarls behind her, but she was frozen. The lights blinked at her like Christmas. She’d almost forgotten the blinking lights of so long ago, but now she could remember: the way they lit her father’s face up, red and green. He’d been smiling until they realized what was happening. Christmas in July, they’d joked. Someone too lazy to take down their lights?

A hand closed around her wrist and she jolted. Yrhen’s face was right there. “You looking to die tonight?” he asked, teeth bared. 

She considered it, shaken by the newly unearthed memory. How could she have forgotten the lights? 

“Too slow,” he said, tugging her through the door, his face lighting up—for just a moment—with red and green. 

The door slid shut behind them, and Ephraim was trapped in a metal box. Yrhen pushed past her and disappeared down a hallway. It was cold and clean and everything was metal-grey and sleek. There was electricity, the ceiling lights soft and comfortably bright.

Down the hall, she heard his voice echo, heard his fist pound a wall. “It’s me. Get us up, fast.”

She didn’t understand. She went to the door and traced her fingers over the seamless metal. 

Bang!

She yelped right along with Noltan, as something slammed into the other side of the door. 

“They’re on the other side!” she yelled, because it had to be the dwellers, finally catching up with them. “Yrhen!”

He reappeared at her side, his wristband still flashing. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’ll hold.”

Something scratched along the door, leaving a shallow dent in the metal. 

“It’ll, um, hold,” he repeated. “Excuse me,” He ran back down the hallway, bellowing, “Get us the hell out of here now!”

This time, Ephraim heard static in response to his command, followed by an electronic murmuring. “What the hell?” she asked, searching the faces of the others for clues. Noltan looked as confused as she was, but Lav was relaxed, the slightest smile of intrigue on her lips that, for once, could have used a re-application of gloss. 

Sensing she was being stared at, she set her glowing indigo gaze on Ephraim. “This’ll be interesting,” she said. 

Before Ephraim could ask, the floor beneath her feet began to vibrate and a mechanical hum filled the air. Her stomach dropped. “Oh no,” she whispered, gripping the handle of the sword too tight. “No. Yrhen? No.” She stormed down the hall, where he was fiddling with an intercom. She dropped the sword, in the mood for flesh on flesh. She grabbed him, pushed him into the wall so hard his head banged against it. “Where have you taken us?” she demanded, even though she knew, even though she could feel it in her bones. 

“It’s okay,” he soothed, laying his hands on her wrists and smoothing them up her forearms. “You’re fine. Everything’s fine.”

“It’s not—are we on a spaceship?” she asked, knowing she should push Yrhen’s hands off her but lacking the will, lacking the desire. “You have to set us down! I have to get off! Let me get off this ship or I swear to god—”

“She’s a good ship,” Yrhen said, his voice deep and lulling. “You don’t mind it so much, do you? We’ll just go for a short ride. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“No, I have to—it’s not—it’s okay?” she asked, the tension in her body leaking from her fingertips. She sagged. If Yrhen hadn’t already had his hands on her, she would have sunk straight into the floor. 

“There you go,” he hushed, going to his knees and laying her down. “It’s not so bad. You like it, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, staring up at his face and the ceiling above, breathing steady even though there were little lights up there that blinked red and green. “It’s not so bad. I like it.”

“It’s a nice spaceship,” Yrhen said. 

“Very nice,” she agreed. 

She was putty on the floor, only vaguely aware of Lav’s high heels click-clacking by her head and Noltan’s face peering down at her. Yrhen’s face disappeared, but that was okay. She felt more at ease than she had in ages, maybe ever. 

“You found an off-switch?” she heard Lav ask. 

“Something like that,” Yrhen replied, but his voice was growing distant. He was heading further down the hall. 

Noltan sat down beside her and pushed her wet hair from her forehead. “She’s not going to like this,” he said. 

Lav snorted, but Ephraim couldn’t see her face, was too relaxed to even shift her eyeballs. “She doesn’t like anything.”

She lay still, feeling the floor buzz beneath her body, feeling the sensation of lifting while she calmly counted the lights flitting across the ceiling. She lay still until the hum of a muffled engine normalized, until the static mumbling over the intercom silenced, until heavy footsteps returned to her, and Yrhen’s face hovered there, pale eyes narrowing, pupils small, like inky pinpricks. 

He took a deep breath, chest rising and falling, then he said, “Okay. Enough of that.”

Ephraim’s heartrate instantly increased, and all senses of serenity were flooded by a pure, hot fury. She leapt to her feet, grabbed her dropped sword, and kicked Yrhen into the wall, pushing the tip of the blade into the hollow of his throat, drawing a droplet of blood. She panted, hands sweaty. The spikes on his knuckles burst halfway through his skin, like he was determining whether she was an actual threat or not. After a moment, they retreated, which was insulting, honestly. 

“What did you do to me?” she asked, keeping the blade’s pressure just enough to puncture. But she was already imagining running him through, piercing straight through his throat. “You did something.”

Yrhen didn’t try to take her wrists this time; he kept his arms lowered at his side. His dumb lock of ashy hair hung over his left eye, and he had the nerve to look unconcerned. “You were panicking,” he began. “And we had to get away before the mercs got through the door. So I pheroed you.”

“You what-ed me?”

“Your friend’s a Noturok,” he said, eyes casting towards Lav, who was standing behind them, glowing eyes dimming with boredom. “But I’m from Castinof. My people often communicate with pheromone signals, conveying feelings through a chemical exchange. During my time on Earth, I discovered that the same chemical signaling can be manipulated in humans.”

Ephraim twisted the blade tip, drawing another drop of blood. It was red, like any human. 

“Quite plainly, I have a variety of pheromones ready for release, and I use them to get what I want. I made you feel a sense of calm for a few minutes so you wouldn’t find the door release and kill us all. That’s it. That’s what I did.”

He said it as if it were okay. As if what he’d just explained was fair and understandable, and not the horrific assault of her mind that it was. She’d been roughed up in plenty of fights, but no one had messed around with her thoughts and feelings, not since…no, she couldn’t think about Him. Not right now. 

Yrhen had sauntered into her brain and made her entire demeanor shift. And the worst part was how it’d felt completely organic. If he hadn’t wanted to release her from his influence, she would have loved to spend the rest of her life on the hallway floor of this spaceship. 

She was so angry that her voice trembled when she’d finally gathered herself enough to speak. “The poker game,” she said. “Everyone kept letting you win.” She’d had such a good hand, but she’d folded anyway, hadn’t even known why. Now she knew. And she felt sick. “You son of a bitch. You were doing it then, too.”

He swallowed and his throat moved beneath the blade. “Gotta make a living. Earth is expensive.”

“That’s what I said,” said Lav, perking up. 

“Listen up.” Ephraim almost threw the sword down again, wanting the satisfaction of wrapping her hand around his throat. But she didn’t; she knew the blade was more effective, had drawn a hint of his spikes when her fists never had. “You don’t ever, ever do that to me again. I can handle monsters and aliens and intergalactic space royalty, but you don’t screw around in my head. You don’t.” The corners of her eyes were stinging. She wanted to throw up, or scream, or hide. She just smoldered instead and hoped he could see it in her eyes: I will kill you if you invade me again.

“I won’t,” he said, lifting a hand to the sword and pushing it gently away from the trajectory of his neck. “You have my word.”

“Like that means anything to me,” she spat. 

Harry’s voice was muffled where he was still hidden halfway down Lav’s top. “The prince’s word is honorable,” he advised in a tone much too snooty for a houseplant. “It should not be disrespected in such a way, by a lowly human.”

Ephraim glared at Lav’s cleavage, but Yrhen interjected before she could threaten to snip his stems. “No need for name calling,” he said. “If you’ll lower your sword, I’ll show you all around the rest of the ship. She’s not big by any means, but she’s true.” He kept his gaze on Ephraim and promised, “I won’t do it again. If I do, I won’t stop you from slicing me head to toe.”

Slowly, angrily, she lowered the sword, running it through one of her pants loops until the hilt caught. She didn’t believe him, but she could pretend to, at least until she figured out how to get off this ship. 

“Come on,” he said, starting down the hall. 

Ephraim followed behind Lav and Noltan, eyes constantly checking over her shoulder, not wanting to be caught by surprise by anything. Ahead of her, Yrhen was rattling on, not a care in the world—or universe. 

“It’s incredibly fortunate that Hectory was landed here for the long weekend,” he said, leading them around the corner, “or else we’d all be merc food by now. Hectory’s the pilot, and one of my best friends from Castinof.”

“I thought you were stranded on Earth,” Noltan said, voice small and unsure. 

“Yes and no,” answered Yrhen, pausing outside another metal sliding door. “After the ship was run down by mercs, Hectory had it repaired in no time. I just…haven’t returned with him to space. For reasons.”

“Murder reasons,” Lav quipped. 

“You could say that,” he admitted. “Regardless, Hectory returns to Earth once a month or so to inform me of the various goings-on of Castinof and other planets of interest. Keeps me in the know, regarding the warrant out for me.”

“Space warrant,” Noltan whispered in awe. 

“I’ll introduce you and we can find a safe place to land,” Yrhen declared, knocking on the door. 

Ephraim’s ears perked up. “You’re setting us back down on Earth?”

“Have I given the impression I have any interest in leaving? I have a life here. All that waits for me on my own planet is death. Once the mercs lose my trail, I have every intention of returning to the Blue Rock. I’ll be billing you for new carpet, by the way. I know you can afford it, rich girl.”

She hummed noncomitally, eager to be out of his presence but also knowing she couldn’t forget the reason any of this was happening in the first place. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted you off my planet. Blossom’s been crawling with aliens long enough.”

“I’m not leaving,” he stated matter-of-factly, in the kind of way that made her want to deck him. He pressed his hand against the door until it lit up with lights and slid open. “Hectory,” he called in a sing-song. “We have guests.”

“You never bring anyone home to meet us,” replied a handsome, redheaded man sitting in front of a wide window and a million blinking buttons. He didn’t leave his mesh, high-backed chair, but he did swivel it around so he could face them properly. The co-pilot seat beside him was empty. Rain was still pelting the window, and Ephraim could see nothing of the world through the cover of night. 

She eyed the new alien with suspicion. Like Yrhen, he looked human, but there was a fear in her now. If she got too close, would he influence her to feel pleased in his presence? When she felt a hand brush her arm, she tensed. It was Yrhen, pushing his way past her to slap his pilot on the back. 

“Hectory has been by favorite Synthetic since we were young,” he said, pointedly meeting Ephraim’s gaze. “He’s not Castinof, like me.” He can’t distort your emotions, he didn’t say. “He’s like you.” He held out a hand to Nolton, beckoning him forward. 

Hectory turned to the kid. “A Synthetic on Earth? How could that be? From what planet did you originate?” 

Noltan glanced nervously at Ephraim. When she nodded, he spoke, less shaky than before, but still wrought with nerves. “I couldn’t say. I don’t remember much beyond a few years ago.”

“Are you sure he’s not human?” Ephraim asked, still not sold on the idea. “He lived with his dad in a trailer park, for god’s sake. Robots don’t live with their dads in trailer parks.”

“He, um, wasn’t my dad,” Noltan said. 

“Huh?” She thought she’d misheard. 

“I never said he was my dad,” he explained. “He was just a man I’ve always lived with. I…don’t remember why. I, um, don’t think he did either.”

“But,” she struggled for an explanation that made sense. “You bleed blood. I saw you get hurt.”

“A common misconception of lesser species,” remarked Hectory. “Most Synthetics are constructed with partial bio-components. Though we won’t die from excessive exsanguination, we can bleed, if cut deeply enough. We are in the age of realism.” Then, switching instantly from textbook to trollop, he winked at Nolton and held out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Hectory.”

“Noltan,” said Noltan, taking the pilot’s hand and giving it a polite shake. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Hectory winked again and Ephraim wondered if it was some sort of kink in his system. “Prettier than these other drabs, aren’t you? Yes, they did a good job with you.”

Yrhen laughed, but Lav was visibly put out, hands flying to her damp wig. 

“Let’s not throw insults at such a late hour, Hectory,” he advised. “It’s been a rough night.”

“Yes, I noticed you’re covered in blood and soaking wet, dripping up and down my floors.” Hectory didn’t look pleased, nor had he stopped holding Noltan’s hand. “You’re lucky I was here or you lot would have been shit out of luck.”

“Exactly what I said.” Yrhen smiled. “What’s the word?”

“The same, I’m afraid,” answered Hectory. “The very same.”

“I figured.” Yrhen rolled his shoulders, stretching an arm across his chest until something popped. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair. Just need to find a safe place to sit us down. Preferably not in a nest of mercs.”

“Preferably not,” Hectory agreed. “I will find a suitable place. But a question first, Yrhen.”

“Yes?” 

“The radar is currently detecting fifty mercenary ships incoming. They’ve,” Hectory paused, eyes blinking inhumanly fast, “just entered Earth’s atmosphere and will be arriving at our location in,” blink-blink-blink, “now.”


	8. Chapter 8

Lots of lights started flashing at once, making Ephraim wince and put her back against the wall while everyone hustled around her. If there were more crew members aboard the ship, she didn’t see any, but she did hear an unknown voice hollering something through the pilot’s intercom. 

Hectory answered, already spun back around in his chair and tapping all over his dashboard. “Fevek, get our engines motorin’. We’ve got trouble and we’re gonna have to rocket out of it.”

The intercom voice replied, “On it!” and fizzled out. 

Yrhen went to stand with his hand on the back of Hectory’s chair, leaning over to stare at all the buttons. He looked about as helpful as Ephraim felt. “Hectory,” he said. “They’re closing in on us.”

“I’m not blind,” Hectory replied distractedly. “Stop looking over my shoulder or we’re all going to die. Noltan, come here.”

Noltan, who’d been pacing anxiously, went at once. “What can I do?” he asked, sounding surprisingly steady for a kid on a spaceship that was about to be destroyed by other spaceships. 

“Sit, sit!” Hectory ordered, pointing to the empty seat. Noltan quickly complied, even if he looked baffled as to why. “You good with computers?”

“Yes. Really good.”

“You know how to drive?”

“Yes! Really well!”

“Then take that wheel and help me pull this old girl up and out of this atmosphere. Can’t move faster than molasses in this sky.”

Ephraim watched, amazed, as Noltan just knew what to do, putting his hands confidently on a strange little metallic wheel, pressing a few buttons himself, and then pulling hard at Hectory’s command. Beside her, Lav was chewing on one of her candy cigarettes. She offered one to Ephraim and she took it, shoving it between her lips, needing to do something with her mouth before she screamed and her carefully honed persona of bitter indifference was overcome by the wreck she truly was. 

Yrhen, who’d stopped lingering over his pilot, went to linger by her instead, accepting a candy cigarette for himself and taking a phantom drag. He took it out of his mouth when it produced no smoke and glared at it, as if it’d personally offended him. “About landing on Earth,” he said carefully. “That might not be able to happen right away.”

Ephraim stared out the broad window, where the rain was beginning to trickle across the pane so quickly, she could hardly register its presence at all. Even at night, she could see the dense clouds as the ship shot up into the sky, higher and higher. 

“Come on, come on,” Hectory muttered, bashing buttons with one hand while the other pulled up on his wheel. Ephraim spied the monitor in front of him, a little white light moving up, up, up on the screen, trailed by a lot of evil-vibing little red lights. It appeared they were outpacing the dweller ships, but not by much. 

“Are we…?” Noltan asked, eyes wide on his monitor.

“Yes,” replied Hectory. “We’ve left Earth’s atmosphere. Preparing for Manic Hustle.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call it that,” Yrhen sighed. 

“Preparing to go super-fast so the bad guys don’t catch us and eat us,” Hectory remedied. 

The intercom voice returned. “Ready for it!” 

“Ready for it,” repeated Hectory. 

“You’re gonna want to brace yourself against something,” Yrhen told Ephraim. Lav was already clinging to the doorframe. 

She searched the small piloting room frantically for something to hold, but before she could find anything, Hectory pressed a little blue button on the dash and the ship lurched, Ephraim lurching with it. She was thrown backwards into Yrhen’s chest, and he wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her from tumbling into the hallway. 

The lurching motion only lasted a few seconds, and then the ship was sailing smooth again, and through the window there was no rain, no clouds, only stars. 

“We’re clear,” reported Hectory. “For now.” The red lights on the monitor had disappeared. 

The intercom buzzed with agreeance. “Engines spiffy like new down here,” the voice said. “Fevek out.”

“Lazy bum,” Hectory spat. “All she does is sleep, when she’s not saving our asses.”

Coming to the realization she was still being held by her least favorite being in the universe—almost—she slapped Yrhen’s arm and squirmed out of his hold. She was angry, because she could still feel his residual heat on her skin. Christ, she needed a shower. 

“So, we’re in space,” she ventured. “That’s great.”

“Hey, you achieved half your goal,” Noltan piped up, grinning over his shoulder. He didn’t look to have any intention of leaving the co-pilot seat, or Hectory’s immediate vicinity. “You wanted Prince Yrhen off the planet.”

“I didn’t want myself off the planet,” she snapped, running both hands through her hair and making it stick up in a thousand untidy directions. She chewed on the tip of the candy cigarette, then stuck it behind her ear, wary of how stupid she must look. “Is this really happening or am I having a nightmare?” she asked herself, genuinely concerned. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d gotten so sucked into a terrible dream that it felt like a week in hell before she found her way to consciousness. 

“My hair is a nightmare,” Lav complained, still poking at her wig. “Does this ship have a bathroom with a mirror?” she directed at Yrhen. Now that Ephraim took a second to really examine her, Lav looked thoroughly distraught. Her white-blonde wig was clearly not supposed to have gotten wet; pieces were hanging unevenly to her shoulders. Her clothes were so wet, they were clinging to her even more than usual, and she was shivering to boot. Now that she thought about it, Ephraim was shivering as well, her suit pants soaked through, along with her dress shirt. She’d left the jacket inside the truck, crumpled on the seat. On Earth. Irretrievable. 

“Let me give you a quick tour,” Yrhen offered. “She’s not a big ship. It’ll only take a few minutes. I’ll find you a change of clothes, too.”

“I’ll stay here for now,” Noltan said. “I’m not cold.”

Lav pulled Harry out of her bosom and set him on Nolton’s shoulder, who was remaining in his co-pilot seat, smiling and whispering with Hectory. “Watch him,” she said, and Ephraim wasn’t sure whether she was talking to Noltan or Harry. 

It didn’t matter, she supposed, as she followed Lav and Yrhen out the door and into the hallway. Nolton wasn’t quite as needful of her help as she’d initially believed. He looked more than happy to be left under his new friend’s supervision. 

The ship was small, that much was true. Yrhen put his hand to another sliding door that blinked and opened at his touch, leading them down a cramped corridor that branched off into several more rooms, all compact, like the piloting station. “This is my room,” he said when they reached a door at the end of the corridor. Glancing inside, it was as small and cramped as all the other areas of the ship she’d seen, with no personal effects she could see. “I mean, I haven’t spent the night here in ten years, but…I guess, technically…”

He hurried them toward the next door, which was shut. “Fevek’s room. She’s the engineer, and she spends most of her time below deck with the engine. I’m not going to try and introduce her right now, because she probably went right back to sleep. If I wake her up or she might laser me or something.” He passed the door without stopping. And then the next. “Hectory sleeps, recharges, whatever, in here.” The next door was also closed. He lingered in front of this one, carefully blank-faced. “This isn’t anyone’s room anymore,” he said. “So one of you can sleep in here.”

Ephraim rolled her eyes, didn’t like the idea of sleeping on the ship, as it meant she would be on the ship long enough to sleep. But she didn’t argue as he continued down the corridor to the next door, this one open and inviting. “Another room for sleeping. Used to be storage, but there’s a mattress.” 

Lav peered inside, poked at the mattress in the corner, and then slipped out of her high heels, accepting it over the unknown interior of the room next door. 

“Here’s the mess,” Yrhen continued, gesturing to the largest of the rooms, which was still smaller than Camaro Exterminations. “Fevek and Hectory keep it pretty well stocked, so you should be able to scrounge and find something if you’re hungry. And here’s the bathroom, where you can fulfill your Noturok needs. Lav, is it?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” she said. “Since you were eavesdropping on our conversation the entire time we thought you were unconscious.”

He smiled brightly at her smugness, so similar to his own. “Right you are, Lav. There’s a closet in there with spare clothes you can change into. As for the hair,” he laughed, “I don’t think there are any spare wigs in there, but feel free to look. And just for the record, I think you’re pretty, too, but you’re not my type.”

She huffed, sauntered into the bathroom, and glared at him until the door slid shut. 

Ephraim stood uncomfortably beside him in the empty corridor. “That’s the whole ship?” she asked. 

“Except for the engine room below us,” he answered. “But Fevek doesn’t like anyone going down there. You hungry?”

She shrugged and followed him when he led the way into the mess. There was a cupboard that looked like any other cupboard except it was shiny and lit up like a rainbow when he reached into it and pulled out a mug of water and some kind of bread roll thing. He tossed the roll to her and extended the mug. 

She accepted it, but only because she was exceptionally thirsty. Going to space was dehydrating. Who knew? She hadn’t expected to learn so much in one day. “You’ve been coming back here once a month to get updates from your robot buddy about your level of outlawness?” she asked, semi-interested and beyond exhausted, which made her voice deeper and raspier than usual. 

“Ever since I got here, yeah,” he replied. “In case they found me and I needed an out. And lo and behold…”

She tore off a piece of bread and shoved it in her mouth. It tasted like bread on Earth. Maybe a little saltier. “I hope you’re not trying to make me feel guilty about any of this,” she warned. 

“I would never.” 

They exchanged hesitant glances. It was too quiet on this ship. She didn’t know how she was supposed to exist up here, like this. She was waiting for reality to fully catch up with her, was sure she’d been coasting on some kind of intensive shock since the night before, when the dwellers had talked and Noltan had understood them. Had Vegas really only been a few hours ago? Had she been listening to Buffalo Tom with Yrhen just a few hours ago?

She chugged her water and tossed the roll back to him, suddenly far from hungry. “I guess I’ll go rest or something.”

“Don’t you want some dry clothes first?” he asked, less considerate and more curious. “If the Noturok’s cold, I know you must be.”

“I’ll manage,” she said, unfriendly and over this entire day. “The closed door is for me, then?” She entered the corridor, aware he was trailing behind, and stopped in front of the room where someone used to stay but didn’t anymore. “Who did you say used to sleep in here?” she asked. 

“I didn’t,” he replied harshly. He pushed on the door harder than was necessary, the metal sliding under his palm. The room looked to her like any other room on the spaceship. Small, cramped bed in the corner, porthole window showing a billion stars and the terrifying expanse of the galaxy. 

She entered the room and the door slid shut behind her immediately. Finally alone, her breath came in hurried gasps and she fell to her knees on the surpisingly firm mattress. “Jesus,” she whispered between painful inhales. “This isn’t happening.”

It was, though, and she couldn’t stop it. She was more helpless than she’d been in a long, long time, since that night. Which was why she curled into a ball on the bed and continued to hyperventilate as quietly as she could until her eyes finally slipped closed from exhaustion and her body lay as still as the dead in the room of an alien stranger. 

Red and green blinking, out of place Christmas. She knew she’d dream of it, and here she was, like she was so often, like she was that night, leaning her head out the car window, ice-cold Nesquik against her palm. They’d been laughing until he’d stepped onto the pavement, and the lights had gotten so much brighter, so out of place on the empty Blossom lane. 

He turned to her when he heard the car door slam, yelled at her to “get back in, Ephie!” But she hadn’t listened then, didn’t listen now, would never learn her lesson, even in dreams. 

“Dad?”

The air hummed and her skin vibrated, tickling the bottom of her flip-flopped feet. 

“Dad?”

He’d seen them before she did, saw them as he backed into the hood of the red minivan. They always joked that he should drive a Camaro, but he insisted it would be too expected, too cliché. “Try not to be a cliché, darling,” he’d told her once, but never more than that, which must have meant he didn’t mean it much, or meant it more than anything else. She didn’t care; she was only fifteen. 

Tall figures stepped around the bright lights, their silhouetted limbs too long for her eyes to understand. Besides the crickets, she began to hear gurgling, grumbling, groaning. “Get in the car,” her father pleaded. 

She didn’t listen, was a terrible listener and a worse child, came forward when she should have gone backward. Screamed when she should have been brave, when more shadowed figures burst from the light and fled down the dark road, all the street lamps flickering before they died. Ephraim’s heart flickered and fluttered, with the knife from the glove compartment already gripped in her fist. She’d left the Nesquik on the car seat. 

Music banged around her skull, ripping her from the red and green lights into blue, into glow-in-the-dark ceiling stars. Yrhen was holding up his cow painting. “See?” he said. “Finally something we have in common.”

“I don’t like cows all that much,” she protested, eyes on his record collection, on his tower of cassettes, on his well-watered hanging plants in the corner. 

“But you don’t hate them,” he pointed out.

“That’s fair.” 

The knife was back in her hand. She tasted chocolate in the back of her throat. It gagged her, wracked her body with chills. 

“I didn’t mean to,” she gasped, and Yrhen nodded. He understood. But she didn’t, and she never would. 

Pale blue eyes flickered into dark, dark green. Green like the bottles He would throw into the air, bidding her to cut them down with her axe, sword, baseball bat. And then Yrhen was Him, stepping around her, sliding his arms around her waist, nosing into her neck. “Glass is so much easier to cut than skin, but you need to be able to do both, don’t you? You’re good at both.”

She shook her head, still choking on the cloying taste of chocolate milk, palms scalding hot from their coat of slick blood. “I didn’t meant to,” she said again as his hold on her tightened. She was suffocating; she couldn’t breathe. She opened her mouth to scream, and scream, and scream, nails clawing at thick forearms, legs kicking into the darkness, her shoes lighting up with flashes of red and green. 

Her own ragged screaming woke her up when combined with the incessant pounding on the door. Like always, she shot straight up, heart racing, lungs burning as she struggled to pull in a full breath. Her panic grew every time she breathed and was left unfulfilled, like her lungs weren’t accepting the oxygen she tried to give it. She was dying. She got to her feet, going dizzy, her breaths quick and thin, her fingers pressed to the pulse in her neck, under her jaw, counting the seconds until her heart exploded or her lungs collapsed or her brain hemorrhaged. 

She made it to the door, eyes unseeing. Stars like the ones all around her outside the tiny spaceship she was trapped inside. She slapped at the cool metal until it slid; she slid with it. 

Arms caught her before her knees could buckle. She fought against those arms until she realized they were thin and smelled like sugar. Long hair black as onyx tickled her cheek as she was led to the foot of the bed and placed there, firm hands on her shoulders and a strong voice ringing above her, filtering out the sounds of her own desperate breaths. 

“Breathe, dumbass,” Lav instructed, getting down on her knees to look Ephraim in the eyes. Her own were glowing brightly, and even though it was some unholy hour, her face was fresh and dewy, and she must have found makeup in the bathroom because her lips were stained cotton candy pink and her lids were frosted with pink shimmer shadow. She’d stripped out of her skintight, white club clothes and was wearing something similar to what Hectory had been wearing: a plain, form-fitted t-shirt in robin’s egg blue, matching spandex pants that flared at the ankle. Her feet were bare and her toenails were painted black with white polka-dots. Her hair was loose and falling around her shoulders. 

Ephraim’s heartbeat slowed while she looked at her. The loose spirals at the ends of her hair calmed her breathing enough for her to catch up with it. She groaned, exhausted, and put her head in her hands. “Go away,” she said. “I’m okay now.”

“Pfft.” Lav left her to rummage through the small chest stuffed in the corner of the room, using one of her long nails to twist the lock until it snapped open. “Aha,” she declared, digging in and coming out with her hands full of robin’s egg fabric. “Change into this. You’re frosty. You’re practically emitting your own freeze warning. Why did you sleep in those clothes?” She shook her head and threw the clothes at Ephraim. 

Ephraim was too out of it to complain or protest, or even be shy—not that she ever was around Lav. “These are too big,” she noted, after she’d stripped off her wet shirt and tugged the new one over her head. The shoulders were too wide and the hem was too long. The collar hung below her collarbones. 

“Somebody buff as hell fit into that,” Lav commented appreciatively. 

“Someone Yrhen didn’t want to talk about,” Ephraim said softly, remembering the way his shoulders had tensed and his face had gone deliberately blank at the merest mention of the former occupant. “I’m drowning in this.”

“Better than freezing to death in clothes that were cool five years ago,” Lav replied, bundling the pants Ephraim had wiggled out of and banishing them, along with her penny loafers and shirt, to the corner. “There.” She scruffed a hand through Ephraim’s hair, fiddling with the bleached strands that framed her face. “Much, much better. Hold on.” In her hand—or maybe it had been hidden in her cleavage—there appeared, like magic, a tube of lipstick. It was the same shade Lav was wearing, and before Ephraim could pull away, Lav smeared the color across her frowning lips. “There. You don’t look like you’re a second away from death anymore. You’re welcome.”

“Are you trying to make up for the fact that you’ve been lying to my face since we met?” Ephraim asked, blotting some of the lipstick onto the back of her hand. 

“Lies of omission never count,” Lav answered, sticking the tube back into the chasm of her bosom. “If you’d asked me, hey, Lav, are you by chance not from Earth? I might very well have been honest. Actually, I’m not sure. Telling the truth would have negatively affected my research.”

Ephraim shivered, still cold. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders and tried to keep grimacing at Lav, but it was kind of hard, considering she’d never been able to take her seriously, and just because she was technically an alien now—and always had been— it didn’t make her suddenly scary or intimidating, just a little more annoying than before. Maybe a little less annoying, too, in some ways. It wasn’t like Ephraim didn’t have her own secrets, things she’d die before admitting to anyone. Secrets like the one she dreamt about.

“Your face gets ugly and scrunched up sometimes,” Lav commented lightly, plopping down beside her on the bed, making the mattress jiggle. “Whatever you’re thinking about, forget it, for all our sakes. We’re the ones that have to look at you.”

“Didn’t I tell you to go away?”

“Be nice to me. Prince Yrhen wanted to come barging in when he heard you screaming. It was me that kept him out. Aren’t you pleased with me?”

Ephraim bit her lip to keep from cursing. If she’d woken up to Yrhen hovering over her, she probably would have attacked without question and hyperventilated to death. “A little pleased, I guess,” she admitted. “But still pissed. I’ve been working with aliens and never even knew it. Your plant is a spy.”

“Former spy,” Lav corrected. “Get it straight, Camaro.” She stood up with a stretch. “Are you done being dramatic? I’d like to get some uninterrupted sleep without worrying whether or not you’re gonna have an episode.”

“I don’t have episodes,” Ephraim defended, fists balling tight at her sides. 

“Sure. I’ll just leave these with you.” She threw down her pack of candy cigarettes and smiled, as if she’d just bestowed the gift of life or something, as if anything but real cigarettes would ever sooth the frayed edges of Ephraim’s nerves. “You’re welcome.”

“Go away.”

When Lav left, Ephraim glimpsed Yrhen’s shadow lingering on the other side of the sliding door, saw it disappear when Lav shooed him away, and then the door slid shut again, and Ephraim could breathe. But she couldn’t sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

She felt ridiculous walking into the mess hours later, after she’d finally heard the sound of other people pattering around outside, cueing her in that the hour was late enough for her to emerge from the room and pretend she’d gotten some sleep. She felt ridiculous, because on top of her clothes being made for someone with muscles way bigger than hers, she’d found a plaid flannel shirt stuffed under the mattress and, still chilled, shuffled into that, too, so she was basically a walking hand-me-down in penny loafers and a mess of un-styled hair. She didn’t even want to imagine what her skin looked like. Probably blotchy and gross, all her concealer washed away by rain and blood and alien sheets.

She reminded herself that she didn’t care what the people on the other side of the sliding door thought, reminded herself her company consisted of a kid who was probably a robot, a dude who was definitely a robot, a talking sycophant plant, an assistant who was used to her looking terrible, and Yrhen. So. Not. Worth. The. Fuss. 

She slipped the flannel off her shoulders, though, before she went out, and tied it around her waist, in hopes that would keep her baggy pants from unceremoniously slipping down her hips at an inopportune moment. The sound of the engine was louder in the hall, and the first voice she heard belonged to the supposed engineer named Fevek, although the mysterious alien and/or robot was nowhere to be seen. Her voice was coming through the shiny intercom on the wall of the mess, too loud in Ephraim’s ears after hours of solitude. 

“If you hadn’t nearly run my engine out of the stratosphere last night,” she rattled in a tinny, fuzzy voice, “then I wouldn’t be needing to patch up, would I? I’d have been able to make your stupid Earth cakes, then, wouldn’t I?”

“They’re called pancakes,” Yrhen sighed, leaning against the wall by the doorway, so he was the first thing Ephraim noticed when she entered the room. “Not Earth cakes.”

“I’m too busy for you,” quipped the intercom. “Don’t eat my twinkles.”

“They’re Twinkies, Fevek.” He grinned at Ephraim, like it was some sort of inside joke they shared, scanning her from head to toe until his eyes focused on her waist, where the flannel was hanging. His expression darkened. She scowled and hurried past, sitting next to Noltan where he was perched on the tabletop—the table that took up almost all of the mess, because it was so big, and the room was so small. 

“Good morning,” he greeted, the nervousness of last night gone from his eyes. He was dressed in the same blue uniform as everyone else, and sipping a cup of coffee, which appeared to be mostly cream. “Sleep okay?”

She didn’t like how quickly the tables had turned on her. Make one mistake, wake up one night on a tiny ship screaming your head off, and suddenly you’re the fragile one everyone is smiling their saddest smiles at. What had happened to her protecting Noltan, the scared nerd from the trailer park? When had he started seeing her as some weak, sensitive thing? She’d worked hard to build up an image that she wasn’t, and it had deteriorated completely within a twelve hour span. 

She ignored the question completely with a silent vow to never sleep again, so her nightmares would stop catching up to her. “Where’s Lav?” 

“Right here,” Lav answered, reappearing from where she’d been half stuffed into the rainbow cupboard, her arms full of Krispy Kreme boxes. “Prince Yrhen, you have a sweet tooth.”

He shrugged. Like Ephraim, he looked like he hadn’t slept last night. “Hectory and Fevek give me grocery lists once a month when we meet. Those might be old. They’re from last month’s run. Couldn’t exactly find time to get any shopping done this time around.” He cast his eyes at Ephraim. Dark circles surrounded pale blue. He was clean this morning, had clearly taken a shower, as all the dried blood she’d put on his face last night was washed away, including the red tips of his stupid, floppy bangs, and he was wearing robin’s egg blue spandex clothes, like they all were now, as if they were in some weird, culty folk band. 

Lav nudged Ephraim and stole her spot on the table next to Noltan. Ephraim sighed theatrically and stole a semi-stale donut to nibble, leaning against the wall farthest from Yrhen so she could properly glare. “Since we’re all here,” she began, “we need to talk.”

“That’s rude. Harry’s not here.” Lav had worked her long dark hair into a complicated bun during the night and reapplied about a thousand coats of lipstick. “His leaves were feeling limp this morning, so I left him with Hectory on the deck. He has an artificial sunshine lamp.”

“I do not care,” Ephraim replied drily. “Talking greenery wouldn’t have a place in this conversation anyway.”

“Wow,” Yrhen said softly. “You are pretty rude.”

“What is it, Captain?” Noltan prompted sweetly. 

Yrhen and Lav both snorted, making Ephraim’s flanks rise. “Stop calling me that, kid.”

“I thought you liked it—”

“Let’s just get to the point, okay?” she interrupted, because she was very near the edge of having had enough. “Because of you, we’re somewhere in space. Can I assume we’re still being hunted by dwellers? I mean…mercs?”

“You can assume we’re always being hunted by mercs. That’s why I don’t make a habit of hanging out in space,” Yrhen replied. “But we’re stuck here for now. Hectory took us a few galaxies away. The mercs’ll find us eventually, but we have a little time. Probably.”

“Time to get back to Earth?” Lav asked. “I need to finish my research.”

“No,” Ephraim said, causing everyone’s eyebrows to lift in unison. It would have been funny if she’d not been in such a mood. “Much as I’d like to, we can’t just go back to Earth.” She straightened from her lean against the wall. “I wanted you off this planet, and you’re off it,” she told Yrhen, who was watching her with unconcealed interest. “But that’s only half the problem, isn’t it?”

He nodded.

“The other half, the harder half, is that the mercs are gonna chase us all down until you’re dead. And even if we outran them and returned to Earth, they’d still come to Blossom, still crawl all over my town looking for you.”

Again, he nodded. 

“You don’t know me at all,” she continued, walking towards him slowly, “but I’ve made my living out of killing these things.”

“It’s more of a hobby,” Lav commented. “Since you’re super loaded already.”

“A hobby, then,” Ephraim amended. “I’ve made a hobby out of hunting and killing these things.”

“Exterminating,” Noltan whispered dramatically. 

“Okay, guys, shut up for a second,” she snapped. “What I’m saying is this: running isn’t a viable option, so let’s find out what is. Yrhen.” She stopped in front of him, tipping her head slightly back so she could meet his eyes. “Why is there a warrant out for your death, or arrest, or whatever?”

“Murder,” he answered shortly. 

“Duh. Lav already said that much,” she responded, equally short. “Who did you murder?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. Unlike Ephraim, his shirt fit him obscenely well. “No one.”

“That’s a lie,” Lav laughed. 

“Is it?” Ephraim asked. “Did you kill someone? I need to know.”

“You don’t need to know,” he answered. 

“Fine. I want to know. So tell me. Why’s everyone after you?”

He grunted, irritated, but grinned through it, which was kind of creepy, but also very relatable. “As Prince of Castinof, my parents were always trying to marry me off to influential families from other planets, prominent figures we had dealings with.”

“Gross,” she commented, mostly to herself, but he nodded anyway. 

“Yeah. Most of the planned unions…never worked out, because, okay, on my home planet, I’m kind of a fuck up. But the last one stuck. There was nothing I could do to sway either of our parents from thinking the marriage was a good idea. Even Princess Willamede wasn’t into it. I don’t think she liked the idea of a union any more than I did.”

“Understandable.”

“Was Princess Willamede as hot as the rumors say?” Lav interjected. 

“Wait, was?” Ephraim asked. “You killed the princess you were supposed to marry?”

“Like I said before, no.” Yrhen was frustrated, but so was Ephraim. “I didn’t kill her, but someone else did, on the night before our wedding.”

“It was ten years ago and everyone was still talking about it when I left Noturok,” Lav commented as she tried to braid a short piece of Noltan’s hair. “So was she hot?”

“She,” he fidgeted against the wall, pinned there by a memory he didn’t want, “was not unattractive.”

“Hardly the point,” Ephraim insisted. “You didn’t kill her?”

“No.”

“But everyone thinks you did. Why?”

“Because I ran away that night. My, um, my friend knew I didn’t want to get married. He came and persuaded me to leave with him, so I did. I didn’t know she was dead until a day later, when the news broke over the intergalactic frequencies. Not only did we find out she was dead, we found out everyone thought I was the one who did it.”

“It is suspicious,” she pointed out. 

“I know it is. That’s why I kept running. My friend and I…and Hectory and Fevek, we all kept running. Until some mercs shot down our ship while we were orbiting Earth. We were forced to land. My friend and I left the ship to try and draw the mercs away from the others.”

“That’s how you ended up in Blossom.” 

“That’s how it happened, yes.” 

“Hectory told me last night that even when he’d repaired the ship, you refused to leave with them,” Noltan said. “He said you didn’t want to keep putting them all in danger.”

“I didn’t,” Yrhen said. “Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not that much of an asshole. But Hectory being Hectory and Fevek being Fevek, they insisted on returning once a month to see if I’d changed my mind, and to give me updates on the status of my warrant. At first, we hoped they might find evidence that it hadn’t been me that did it. But it’s been ten years, so we’re not as optimistic as we used to be.”

Ephraim rolled the story around in her head. It would make sense, if she trusted him, and she wasn’t in the habit of trusting strange men she’d only met the night before. No matter how blue their eyes were. “This friend of yours you’ve painstakingly omitted a name for,” she hedged. “Where are they now?” Why aren’t they in the room she slept in last night? “Do they work with you at the club?”

There was that blank face again. “Hardly. I haven’t seen him in years. He left the ship with me when we came to Earth, but he didn’t stick around. He left me. It was…pretty abrupt.”

There was pain in his voice, even if it wasn’t on his face. And even though it had been a long time since Ephraim had felt similar pain, she could still process it, still interpret it. “He wasn’t just a friend, was he?” she asked. 

Yrhen was less pleased by her deduction. “My boyfriend. Ex.”

“Dumped you for an Earthling the first chance he got?” she prodded. 

“I can only suppose so. But I doubt he stuck around Earth longer than he had to. Hectory’s heard rumors about him. Apparently, he’s back on Castinof. No one thought he had anything to do with the murder after he claimed I kidnapped him. He…published a book about the whole thing.”

“What a dick,” Ephraim said before she could filter out the sympathy. 

“I read that book,” Lav said. “He paints a pretty clear picture of what went down that night. That he saw you murder Princess Willamede, and that you tried to kill him next, before kidnapping him. A fascinating read, even if it could have used another round of spell-check. What’s his name again? Something-something Wulbrox? He made you seem crazy.”

“Sidero,” Yrhen answered stiffly. “Is his name.”

“So this ex of yours—Sidero—helped you run away the night before your wedding, only to abandon you on another planet before running back home to write a book condemning you of murder?” Ephraim restated. “I thought my ex was bad.”

Lav scoffed. “You don’t have any exes.”

“None that you’ve met,” she retorted. She didn’t mention that it had been about nine years since Him. But the last thing she wanted was for the conversation to land on her past relationships, so she returned her steady gaze to Yrhen, whose body language was so locked down, he was practically a part of the wall he leaned against. “There’s only one thing we can do,” she decided, “in light of all this fuck-uppery.”

“Hide,” he answered knowingly. 

“No. You’re innocent? We prove it. Your planet takes you back with open arms, you sue your ex-boyfriend for slander, and I get dropped back on an Earth where monsters aren’t skittering around in basements.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Yrhen said, finally peeling himself off the wall to yank a donut out of Lav’s hand and stuff it into his mouth. Around the crumbs, he said, “We’re going to wait up here for a bit, and then I’m going back to Vegas, where I’ve carefully patched together a life that doesn’t totally suck. If you hate monsters in Blossom, you can just move somewhere else. Come to Vegas. I’ll make you Blue Rock’s first official go-go dancer.”

“That’s not happening,” Ephraim replied, following him to the table and snatching the donut out of his hand. “You don’t get to run back to your penthouse while I risk my life everyday rolling in the dirt with alien mercenaries.”

“I don’t think you get it.” Yrhen’s hand slammed against the table, his eyes going dark. “If I’m seen, I’ll be arrested, if not straight up killed. If I’m arrested, they’ll take me directly back to my parents, who signed the warrant for my arrest, and I will be executed with no trial. There’s no happy ending for me up here. Earth is all I have.”

The following silence was thick in the air. Yrhen was hardly breathing. Noltan had three braids in his hair while Lav worked on a fourth. Ephraim felt the prince’s refusal keenly. Like her, he had been trapped in a limbo for ten years, waiting, expecting something terrible, but trying to scrape together some semblance of a life anyway. Because it was that, or give up on everything. And she suspected Yrhen wasn’t the type to give up. She certainly wasn’t. In her nightmare, they’d had a fondness for cows in common, but what if there was more they shared? What if she could help? What if she wanted to?

“I don’t think you get it,” she said. “I’m a professional exterminator. I will exterminate your warrant and clear your name, if that’s what it takes to get you off my planet.”

He laughed. 

She stuck her finger in his face, because she hated when people did it to her. “This is what’s happening. We’re finding your ex, because they’re your alibi, and if they don’t want to admit their book was a lie, then we’ll torture the truth out of them. It kinda sounds like they deserve it, anyway. When we can prove you didn’t kill Princess Hottie, we’ll fly you back to Casti-whatever and everyone will love you, etc. I will go back to Earth, and I will not have to deal with you or any other aliens ever again.” She took a deep breath and realized she was too excited. “I don’t have pheromone magic or fancy spikes, but I’m not a helpless human. Lav is annoying, but I’m pretty sure she’s secretly a supervillain. And Noltan is a freaking robot, apparently. We’re basically the best team you could have on your side.” When he grinned at her, she sneered and added, “For the right price, of course. I’m not doing this for my health.”

“It sounds like you kind of are,” Yrhen said. 

“Well, maybe a little. But mostly, I expect you to pay me in more than farm animal paintings.”

“Fine,” he said. 

“Fine?” She squinted up at him. “Fine, you’ll hire Camaro Exterminations?”

“Yes, but only if you stop referring to yourself as that,” he answered. 

“It’s my place of business.”

“I know. I get it.”

“You don’t get anything,” she responded fussily. This room was becoming a problem, being trapped in here with too many bodies and not enough square footage. “I’m going to go talk to Hectory and ask him where we might find Sidero.”

“Why can’t you ask me?” Yrhen asked with a scowl. 

“What do you know? You’ve been playing club owner for ten years,” she answered, and with a final bite of the donut, she fled the mess. 

She found Hectory in the only place she’d ever seen him, which was in his piloting chair. He was chatting with Fevek over the intercom and listening to Barry Manilow. It seemed Yrhen’s musical tastes had spread like a disease to innocent bystanders. 

“Oh, Mandy,” he sang under his breath while Fevek’s tinny voice went on about the shower pressure. “Well, you came and you gave without taking, and I sent you away. Oh, Mandy…”

“Hectory,” Ephraim said, cutting off his heartfelt chorus and silencing the intercom. 

The Synthetic paid her a glance over the shoulder while his fingers tapped away at his flashy dashboard. He looked very important, and he probably was. “Can I help you, Lady Camaro?”

“Yeah, you can help by never calling me that again. Ephraim’s fine.”

“Can I help you, Ephraim?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. That depends on what you know about Sidero Wulbrox.”

“Sidero Wulbrox,” Hectory said, voice lilting with a sense of wonderment. “A curious specimen, a walking enigma. Eyes that could look into your core mechanics, but a spirit unable to see them.”

“Um, I meant, like, location wise. Do you know where he is?”

He made a little harrumph, displeased his poetic rambling had gone unappreciated. The longer Ephraim looked at him, the less she could think of him as a robot, much less think of the kid as one. 

“I’ve made a life these past years scrounging up information for Yrhen, but steadfast details of Sidero Wulbrox evade me. Though he’s become a prominent figure in Castinof society, he’s made a habit of moving around quite often. Perhaps it’s because he’s insatiable. Perhaps it’s because guilt has made him impossible to sate.”

“You don’t know where he is, then?” 

“Currently, no. The last confirmed location we had for him was the Seventh Moon of Vugol, a resort for the well to-do, but he’s since moved on from there. Like I said, he strikes me as one who is difficult to satisfy. That was certainly my experience when he ran with Yrhen, and before that, when they were…a couple.”

Interested against her better judgment, Ephraim lowered herself into the co-piloting chair so she could more comfortably angle for details. “How long were they together? Yrhen doesn’t strike me as a long-term guy.”

“Funny, since you’ve not even known him for twenty-four hours,” Hectory scoffed. She felt adequately scolded. “They were inseparable for a time,” he continued, “but Yrhen is a prince, and so their love could never exist publically. It was a point of heartache for both of them. Things were supposed to be better when Sidero finally asked Yrhen to run away with him. But then the princess was murdered.”

“And everything changed,” she finished. “Hectory, are you sure Yrhen didn’t kill the princess? Like, absolutely sure?”

“You’re the expert on him,” he snapped. “Have you not yet figured it out since your meeting last night?”

Hectory was evidently a very sassy, overprotective robot, and Ephraim didn’t have time for it, even if she did respect it. “Look,” she sassed right back. “I need some straightforward answers before I traipse all over space for a princess murderer. Can you help me out?”

He stared at her. Barry Manilow crooned. By the sound of it, he’d really screwed Mandy over. Ephraim hoped she wouldn’t take him back. 

“He isn’t,” Hectory answered. 

“A princess murderer?” 

“A murderer of any kind. He lived a sheltered life on Castinof, and a secluded one on Earth. I’ve known him well all the while, and I can tell you this, as honestly as I’m programmed to do so: the prince hasn’t a malicious bone in his incredibly ripped, aesthetically pleasing body.” He sat back in his chair with a smile. “Does that instill you with the confidence needed to ‘traipse all over space’ on his behalf?”

“It’s hardly on his behalf,” she muttered. “But, yes. I guess I’m instilled.”

“That is a recommended state of being. I’m glad for you.”

Though fervently wishing she’d avoided this entire exchange, she continued on with its purpose. “We need to find Sidero,” she said. “Where’s the best place to start looking?”

He tapped at his blinking buttons and turned away from her, as if he’d suddenly lost all interest in their conversation. “I suppose his last known location would be the best place to start. Shall I set the navigations to the Seventh Moon of Vugol?”

“Yes.” She stood from the co-pilot seat just as Noltan entered the room. “Hey, kid,” she greeted. “Feel like checking out a resort for wealthy aliens?”

“Sure,” he answered, swiftly sliding past her to reclaim the co-piloting seat. He wasn’t even looking at her; his eyes were too busy being plastered onto Hectory’s fingers as they danced all over his buttons. 

“I’ll tell the others the plan, then,” she said, and excused herself before they could kick her out. 

Noltan waved before the door slid shut, banishing her to the cold, metallic hallway. She almost found herself wishing for a cow painting on the wall, or maybe some ducks, to liven the place up a little. After seeing the home Yrhen had made for himself at the Blue Rock, she knew he must be feeling similarly. This place wasn’t his style at all, and that she could confirm with confidence, after less than twenty-four hours of knowing him.


	10. Chapter 10

The trouble with visiting a resort moon was that one must look the part, even if one was Ephraim Camaro.

After two days of hyper speeds, their little ship zooming across space, Hectory announced they were circling the Seventh Moon of Vugol. Lav had promptly grabbed Ephraim by the elbow and dragged her into the bathroom, and they’d been inside it ever since. 

She was currently sitting cross-legged on the counter while Lav plied her face with moisturizers and concealers she’d found stashed under the sink, the supposed owner of such cosmetics being the ever-mysterious Fevek, whom Ephraim still hadn’t met, even after all their hours of travel. Fevek’s skin was a few shades lighter than Ephraim’s—according to her makeup—but the product was good enough to brighten the dullness under her eyes and fix the reddest of her spots. It was comforting that beings from other planets also struggled with skin problems, but not comforting enough by half. 

Lav eyelined, mascaraed, lipsticked, blushed, powdered, and plucked. Brushed and pinched and bitched. She’d pinned the too-big uniform shirt at the waist and stolen Ephraim’s pants, so she was basically dressed in a blue miniskirt that showed off her leg muscles and her leg scars. 

“It’s the fashion on Vugol,” Lav insisted when Ephraim complained. 

“How do you know?”

“Because Fevek told me, and she’s very in-the-know. Relax your mouth; you’re making the lipstick smudge.”

Ephraim was full of complaints that being forced to wear a dress up to her bits was sexist and insulting, and she was disappointed in outer space for not advancing past the same archaic tastes as Earth. But when she was finally allowed to leave the bathroom, all her complaints disappeared right out of her head, because Yrhen had also changed for the resort, and his clothing was the same as Ephraim’s. Meaning he had also fashioned his shirt into a scanty dress, and the entirety of his legs, including thick thighs and shapely calves, were on full display. As they passed in the hallway, Lav handed off her lip gloss to him, and he disappeared into the bathroom with a wink. 

Ephraim proceeded to hide in the mess and stuff her face, because seeing Yrhen in a short, kind of slutty dress had wrecked something inside her, something pivotal for functioning. Lav followed with an obnoxious smile on her perfect face. She was also wearing a shirt-dress, but that was nothing new; she’d made the change without prompting on the first day aboard the ship. 

“I told you it was the fashion,” she drawled. “Did you think I meant it was only the fashion for females?” She tutted and stuck a candy cigarette in her mouth. “That’s so sexist.”

Ephraim chewed slowly, so she wouldn’t have to comment, because honestly, there were no words. 

The next time she saw him, she was prepared, and her expression was trained to one of utter disinterest and zero surprise. And after existing in the same room as him for several minutes, with him dressed like that, she stopped mentally imploding, because, after all, she’d spent most of her life wearing clothes other people didn’t think she should wear, wearing her hair one way when it should have been, by society’s standards, worn another. She’d never been very good at meeting people’s expectations of how she should be. Too masculine some days. Too feminine others. Too much of a mixture on all the days in-between. Yrhen in a dress? Refreshing as hell, and if she had any misgivings at all, it was caused by the fact that he looked better in one than she did. 

Once they were off the ship and stepping onto the surface of the Seventh Moon of Vugol, the novelty quickly wore thin, as there wasn’t a stitch of pants anywhere in sight. Legs, legs everywhere, but none quite as fetching as…

“I haven’t been on Earth as long as you,” Yrhen said, interrupting her thoughts, “but I’m pretty sure staring is considered impolite there.”

And shit. She had been staring at him. Her face colored and she busied herself with pulling down the hem of her own shirt-dress, so she wouldn’t have to look at his happy little smile. “I wasn’t looking at you,” she protested. “As if.” 

He snorted, but let it go, and their small party, consisting mostly of bare legs, marched off the ship and down a floating pier. Floating, because Ephraim was on another planet, where things floated, and her mind was blown by every detail. The sky, for one, was green, which was scary, because, like, tornadoes? But the weather was perfect and the breeze smelled like coconuts, or whatever the space equivalent of a coconut was, and the beings walking around were all different. Most were humanoid in shape, like Yrhen and Lav, but some weren’t. One was a blob that just sort of slid by her, leaving a trail of something that looked like glitter behind. It was…overwhelming. She’d seen dwellers, sure, lots of them, but she’d never seen anything like Vugol before. It wasn’t scary, but gorgeously foreign, and as she passed her reflection in the resort restaurant window, she looked good in the green light. As a result, her walk was a bit more swishy than usual when Noltan held the door for her, and she entered the restaurant with excitement in her gut. She was on another planet. 

Madness.

Yrhen led the way to the bar, and the four of them tried their best to look casual as they ambled up on the barstools—which were made out of a material that felt like cotton balls, but was somehow solid and stool shaped. They’d all left their weapons aboard the ship, and Ephraim didn’t like being somewhere so unfamiliar without something to grip, so she gripped her thighs instead, her nails biting into the skin. She didn’t let go until the bartender put a drink in front of her, one that was made up of pink and blue swirls and smelled like heaven, if heaven smelled like the inside of a Bath and Bodyworks. 

On her other side, Lav was sipping the same drink, her eyes closed and posture relaxed. Noltan was sticking his pinky finger in the liquid and fixing Ephraim with a look of uncertainty.

She shrugged. “You’re supposedly a Synthetic, right? It’s not gonna hurt you. Me, on the other hand…”

“It won’t kill you,” Yrhen said, already halfway finished with his own. He waited for her to pick up the glass and hold it to her lips before adding, “It might give you the runs though.”

She slammed it down as he laughed and laughed, and it was around that time the bartender came back around to ask if they needed anything else. Which they did. 

Pushing the drink away from her and kicking Yrhen under the cover of the bar, she addressed the bartender, who was mostly humanoid, but had fuzzy antennae sticking out of his head, yellow and black, like a bumblebee. It was distracting when they twitched at her, but she decided to just go with it. It was hardly the weirdest thing she’d seen. 

“I actually have a question for you, in regards to a former resident of the resort,” she said in her politest voice. Apparently she didn’t use it very often, because Lav, Noltan, and Yrhen all gawked at her when they heard the saccharine tone. “Do you remember a Sidero Wulbrox, by chance?”

The bumblebee bartender shook his head, but luckily, it was only in exasperation. “Everyone knows him, don’t they?” He sounded worn out, like maybe he’d been working all night and this was the last thing he needed. 

“I guess they do,” she replied sweetly. “But I specifically need to know if you remember him, and, like, when he lived here?”

His gaze grew suspicious. “Another groupie looking to bang the book nerd, I take it?” 

And there went her desire to be amiable, just like that. She leaned over the bar and grabbed the stupid bumblebee alien by the bowtie. “Do I look like a groupie to you?” she hissed. “I know Sidero used to live here, and I need to know where he went when he left. Do you know, or do you not know?”

A few patrons were staring, but none of them looked moved enough to do anything about anything. It seemed threats were par for the course along with short hemlines on Vugol, and she took advantage of that fact quickly, hauling the bartender halfway over the bar when he didn’t answer fast enough.

“Woah,” Yrhen whispered at her side. “All right.”

“Watch the feelers! They’re fragile!” the bartender howled. “I’ll tell you what I know about Sidero, but it’s not much, and I’ll only tell you if you let me go.”

With a frustrated huff, she released her hold on his bowtie and his feet landed back on his side of the bar with a thump. 

“What a bitch,” he rasped, readjusting his bowtie, which had gone considerably wonky. 

“You’re not wrong,” Ephraim agreed. “Sidero. Talk.”

Suddenly, a waiter walked by with a plate of cheesy fries—what?—and set it down between Lav and Nolton. Ephraim rolled her eyes. 

“He hasn’t lived here in six months or so,” Bumble said. “He used to come here most evenings and have a drink. Different date every night. Usually with folks carrying copies of his book, wanting autographs. He was kind of a dick, but a great tipper.” The bartender looked away from her, and his antennae twitched when his gaze fell on Yrhen. “Hey, you look awfully familiar, man.”

“He gets that a lot. He’s got one of those faces,” she intervened, slamming down her fist to take the bartender’s eyes off the prince wanted for murder. Even wearing lipstick and a fake mustache—which Fevek had given him as a gag gift last year, so the story went—it was still kind of obvious, if you looked too hard, that he was who he was. Because he did have one of those faces. The kind you don’t forget. “Tell me more. Where did Sidero go when he left Vugol?”

“Are you gonna…hurt him?” Bumble asked. She was about to say no, of course not, when he added, “Because that would be cool. I heard he moved to Bittlesby, to some small island only billionaires can afford, and he owns the whole thing.” Bumble’s disapproval shone bright in his grimace. “You know, I didn’t think his book was even that good, but everyone is so freaking obsessed with him. Like, calm down, you know?”

Somehow Bumble had decided Ephraim was an appropriate confidante, which was weird, but useful. “I know,” she said. “Just because he’s good-looking doesn’t mean he’s worth knowing.” She glanced pointedly at Yrhen when she said this, to which he responded by stealing her drink. “What a tool.”

“A total tool,” Bumble agreed. “But anyhow, he’s on Bittlesby, last I heard.” He shifted. “Can I go now? Far away from you, please?”

“Yeah, yeah. Go on,” she said, waving him away. She was impressed and flattered by the speed at which he scampered to escape her. 

“Bittlesby,” Yrhen repeated thoughtfully, staring into the bottom of his glass. “I’ve been there before. Sidero and I took a vacation there, when we were younger.”

“You think he’s on the same island?” she asked. 

“Without a doubt. His family owns property there. I guess they own the whole thing these days, but I think I know exactly where he’ll be.”

“You don’t sound too happy about that.”

He didn’t. Sound or look happy at all. The color on his lips was fading where he’d pressed them against the cocktail glass, and his fake mustache was in danger of drooping. His eyes were bright and pale blue as ever when he turned to her. She wondered briefly how she hadn’t realized upon first laying eyes on him that he wasn’t human. It was so obvious now, how inhuman he was. 

“You have a bad ex, from the sound of it,” he answered. “Would you be happy about seeing him again?”

Her stomach churned, even at the merest mention of Him. If the lights weren’t already tinted green, she was sure her skin would have turned a sickening color all on its own. “I don’t talk about that, as a rule,” she replied, leaning over to steal a fry from Lav and Noltan’s plate. She held it up to Yrhen. “Is this going to make me sick?”

“That’s between you and your bowels. But I think they’re just normal fries. Potatoes are kind of a thing, even out here.”

“Huh.” She nibbled at the end of it. It tasted like a normal fry. But the sudden nausea—non potato related—made her put it down on the bar. She ran her hands through her hair, nervously shifting every meticulously placed strand out of whack. 

Lav smacked her arm and turned from Noltan long enough to say, “I spent forever on that!” But then she was refocused on her food and her loud whispering with the kid, and Ephraim was left with only Yrhen to talk to. Which sucked, because she wasn’t in the mood, really, to talk to anyone. But Yrhen was giving off these sad, look-at-me-talk-to-me vibes, and it was hard to ignore; his presence was so large. She was so aware of him. 

“I wouldn’t,” she said, because she had to say something. She wondered if it was his pheromone magic making her talk, but he’d promised. 

“Wouldn’t what?” he asked, his eyebrow performing its impressive singular arch. His eyebrows were kind of perfect, as in perfectly full and perfectly shaped. She’d never had good eyebrows. Wore bangs for a long time, just to hide them, so she would stop caring about them. 

“Be happy,” she answered, thoroughly uncomfortable now. She didn’t talk about this. She didn’t talk about Him. Ever. “If I had to see. You know.” She couldn’t say His name out loud. Couldn’t think it. Just couldn’t, wouldn’t do it. That would be a step too far. It would make Him too real. Give Him too much control, even now, even after so many years. 

Yrhen nodded sagely, and there it was. Something other than cows they had in common. “How long were you together? You and…the guy? Or girl?”

Her stomach rolled. But her mouth was opening, and she was talking. Of her own volition. Maybe it was because no one had ever asked her any of this before. Maybe it was because, if she didn’t say it, she would explode. “Only a year. I’m not usually such an idiot, but I met him right after. Um.”

Yrhen’s head tilted closer. He had a look on his face that conveyed this intense interest in every word coming out of her mouth, which was a really unfamiliar reaction for her. “After what?” he prompted. He picked the fry off the bar and chomped it down. She frowned, because germs. 

“After my dad. Died.” There. She said it. Kind of. Partially. She’d said all she could allow herself to admit. He had come to her like a miracle, when she’d still had blood on her hands, and saved her from the dwellers. He’d helped her. Stayed with her. And then, as abruptly as He’d appeared, He’d left. No warning, no explanation, no goodbye. She was really alone, after that. Really not okay, and forced to face it.

“That’s a bummer,” Yrhen said. 

“It’s fine now,” she said. “It’s been a really long time.”

He shrugged. “Time doesn’t fix everything. Sometimes it makes everything worse. Because you start forgetting all the bad things and can’t help but remember the good.”

“But sometimes you forget the good and only remember the bad. That’s probably easier.”

“Probably.”

They exchanged a look. She wasn’t sure what kind of look it was, but it was something. It matched the feeling in her gut, the sick feeling, from oversharing. Oh, god. She’d overshared. With Yrhen. She was pathetic. Outer space was making her gross. To make up for it, she had every intention of throwing a severe insult in his direction, but she didn’t have time for it, because before she could find anything to insult, there was a bang from the other side of the bar. 

She snapped her head in that direction, away from blue eyes and towards the kid, who was cornered against the bar with some alien asshole grabbing at his hips. Lav was responsible for the bang, which was quickly realized when Ephraim saw the broken plate at her feet, cheesy fries everywhere, and a jagged piece of ceramic in her hands. 

Her and Yrhen rose to their feet at once, rushing to help with whatever was going on. But it soon became clear Noltan didn’t need their help. He had Lav’s. 

She grabbed the alien—another humanoid with a small horn that made him look like the world’s lamest unicorn man—and hauled him backwards, one hand around the back of his neck while the other brought the sharp piece of plate to his throat. 

“Hands off my friend,” she ordered, sounding terrifying enough to make Ephraim back up a step. The swirl of her eyes glowed incredibly bright, lighting up the whole length of the bar with purple instead of green.

Unicorn-man released Noltan’s hips, let Lav back him up a few paces, and then slammed his elbow into her gut. 

“Ugh!” She swiped at him with the piece of plate, catching him across the cheek right before he jumped on her, sending them both flying to the floor. Bare legs kicked into the air as Unicorn vs. Office Assistant commenced. 

“Oh, wow,” Ephraim whispered, super impressed, but also super angry. She went to Noltan’s side, checking he was alright—he was, except for a bruise on his wrist where he’d been held too tight—and then she threw herself into the scuffle. 

The other patrons were less inclined to ignore an outright brawl, and within moments, the entire bar was wrapped up in the tumult. Punches were thrown. Lips were split. Yrhen’s dress rode up to his waist and Ephraim got a flash of tighty whities. Lav was covered in the blood of Noltan’s assaulter, her smile downright horrifying. Ephraim punched an alien whose skin was so soft, her fist practically went all the way through them. 

More plates were broken, blood thirsty screams filled the air, and someone pulled Ephraim’s hair. And then Bumblebee was hosing them all down with pink, sudsy water, and an alarm was going off that sounded an awful lot like the bell jingle on the door of Camaro Exterminations. 

“Time to go!” Yrhen announced, scooping her out of the fray. He literally picked her up by the waist and hauled her up and out, setting her down outside the rumbling ball of violence that had formed by the bar. He went in for Lav next, pulling her out and setting her next to Ephraim. She was laughing, still armed with her broken plate. Noltan was already standing by the exit, mostly unharmed, but for a split lip he’d gotten in the past minute. 

Ephraim offered a quick salute to the bartender before they slipped out the front door and made a run down the floating dock. 

“What the hell was that about?” she asked Lav as they ran. 

“Some guy was getting all handsy with Nolty!” she answered, her eyes still glowing fiercely. “Are you all right, honey?”

“I’m okay,” Noltan replied, running alongside them with a blush on his cheeks. 

They reached the ship in record time, boarded it in even less, and before Ephraim could catch her breath, Hectory had them zooming off of Vugol, Fevek scolding him over the intercom for never giving her enough warning. 

Once they were out of the moon’s atmosphere, Hectory, for the first time since Ephraim had met him, left his piloting chair and rushed into the mess, where they had all gravitated to nurse their myriad wounds. Upon seeing Noltan, he went immediately to his side. 

“I was afraid this might happen,” he said softly, dabbing at the kid’s split lip with the edge of his sleeve. “There’s always trouble on resort moons. Rich, entitled bastards.”

“I’m okay,” Noltan insisted. “I’m used to getting hurt.”

Hectory didn’t like that, and neither did Ephraim. 

But it was Lav who cackled and finally dropped her piece of plate into the waste bin. “Well, now you can get used to other people getting hurt, if they try to lay a hand on you,” she said, fierce and somehow not ridiculous as she plucked a candy cigarette from behind her ear and tucked it between her bloody lips. “Hectory, help me get him cleaned up,” she said next. They were all more messed up than Noltan, who had barely a scratch, but no one disagreed, and Hectory wrapped an arm around Noltan’s waist and guided him down the hall towards Lav’s room. 

Was Ephraim doomed to always be left alone with Yrhen? It felt that way, at times like this, when the air was heavy and they both had blood on their knuckles. 

“Nice gams,” he said, after a long silence. 

“Shut up,” she answered.


	11. Chapter 11

After everyone’s pants were back on—except for Lav, because she’d probably suffocate if her legs remained covered for longer than a few minutes at a time—and everyone was cleaned up from the impromptu bar fight, they gathered around Hectory’s piloting chair. He was busy doing something far too complicated for Ephraim to understand, tapping away at his dashboard while Noltan did the same in his co-pilot seat. They worked in unison, tap-tap-tapping, and she was struck once again with the strangeness of her new reality. Hanging out in a spaceship with two robots and two aliens, hunting down a mean ex-boyfriend with an intergalactic book deal. 

“Any sign of mercs?” asked Yrhen, loitering over Hectory’s shoulder. 

“Could they have flagged us on Vugol?” Noltan asked. His lip was shiny, like it had been gently rubbed with Neosporin, and he was wearing a shy smile that had been missing after the bar fight. “Didn’t you say the bartender recognized you?”

“With that disguise?” Val laughed. Her eyes had calmed down and weren’t shining as brightly as before, but they still sparked threateningly whenever she glanced at Noltan’s bruised wrist and split lip. 

Yrhen had since ripped off his fake mustache, but faint traces of the lipstick remained, loaning his mouth a subtle crimson stain. He’d gotten a black eye during the fight, but it blended in well with all the other bruises Ephraim had given him the other night. “He said I looked familiar,” he answered. “But I don’t know if he really put it together. Luckily, my face isn’t quite as well known as Sidero’s.” He was frowning down at Hectory’s little screen, the one that showed their ship as a solitary blinking white light. As of right now, there were no traces of red anywhere around it, but Ephraim knew how quickly that could change. “It was probably a stupid idea, me setting foot on Vugol.”

“Maybe you should stay on the ship when we get to Bittlesby,” Ephraim suggested. 

“No way,” was his immediate response. “I’m not hiding on the ship if Sidero is there. That’d be worse than actually having to face him. Not facing him, and having him know it.”

“Bittlesby, where we’ll be landing, is a majorly unpopulated place,” Hectory assured everyone as he worked. “According to the records, the island of note is owned solely by Sidero Wulbrox himself, and his household is the only landmark for miles. It should be safe for Yrhen to investigate.”

“And the mercs?” Yrhen asked again, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. 

“No sign of any mercenary ships yet,” said Hectory, flashing his friend a smile. “But it’s only a matter of time. Remember that.”

“I know.”

Ephraim watched their exchange with a twinge of irritation. She wasn’t used to being the optimistic one and she didn’t like it. At all. “Once we deal with Sidero, the mercs’ll have no reason to chase you anymore,” she reasoned. “It won’t be long now. And then you can be free to get out of my hair.”

“But it’s such nice hair,” Yrhen said. Teasing her. Like that was something normal they did. 

She ignored it, ignored the way her cheeks heated up and the way he glanced away from her when they did, like he was equally embarrassed that she was embarrassed. Besides, her hair wasn’t even that great. In fact, it was notoriously bad. “How far away is Bittlesby?” she asked, desperate for a subject change. 

“For this ship?” Hectory tapped a finger to his nose, unsettlingly human. “Not long. But definitely long enough for you to bathe. Which, no offense, but…”

She stalked off, letting her hand smack the doorframe on her way out. So she hadn’t taken a shower yet in their weird space shower. She almost had, that very morning, but when she’d stepped into the stall, there was a window. A floor to ceiling window looking right out into the great expanse of everything and nothing. She hadn’t been in the mood then and she wasn’t in the mood now, but if she was getting complaints from a robot about her hygiene, she’d have to suck it up. 

She stepped into the bathroom and slid the door shut on the soft laughter following her from the deck. Her face was a strange combination of made up and beaten up when she looked in the mirror. She had been wearing the same underwear since Earth, wondered if everyone else was too, nose crinkling. When she slid out of her hand-me-downs, which must have been Sidero’s at one point, she had fresh bruises on her arms. The cut on her back was healing well, despite having torn the stitching a bit the other day; she’d need to ask Lav to take them out soon though. It was lucky she hadn’t pulled them again, with all the action she’d been privy to over the past few days. 

When she was naked and pulling back the shower door—which was frosted glass, nicer than her shower at home but still strangely ordinary for a spaceship shower—she was met again with the same view: infinite space. Blackness and stars and nothing else. She turned the water to scolding and stepped in, making herself do it. She was afraid of a lot of things, secret things, but she wouldn’t be afraid to take a shower. Even if any old alien could wander by and scope her out as she shampooed. 

There was a bottle of body wash that smelled like sandalwood, and as she scrubbed off the stress sweat this shower alone had caused, she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering back to her conversation with Yrhen, if it could really be called a conversation. It was only a few short sentences. In retrospect, she’d hardly said anything, had hardly admitted to anything. So what if he knew her dad was dead? She knew his dad wanted him dead, so in a way, they were even, weren’t they? She knew his ex-boyfriend left him in the lurch and got a book deal. He knew her ex-boyfriend existed. 

She wondered if He still existed. She could still see His face behind her eyelids, still saw Him most nights, on the worst nights, when she couldn’t stop dreaming, but couldn’t stay awake either. His name was still constantly at the back of her mouth, sitting heavy on her tongue, waiting for her to slip, for her to yell out for Him, beg for Him. She still felt His phantom touch all over, tracing over bruises He’d helped make. Felt the tickle of His breath at her ear. The sandalwood scent was strong, but she could still smell Him when she let herself try. But she didn’t want to try. She didn’t want to think about it, or Him, or that night, or any of the nights that had followed. 

Hyperventilating in showers is unfortunate. For one, you’re naked, so if you pass out, you’ll be found naked, which is embarrassing. But it’s mostly unfortunate because if you can’t relax in a shower, if your anxiety follows you even there, where the hell are you supposed to go to relax? How was she supposed to rinse out her conditioner if she couldn’t breathe? 

She stepped out of the direct spray of water and twisted the faucet to full heat, letting the glass steam up and obscure the view through the window. Then she jumped out of the shower and stuck her head in the sink to finish washing out her conditioner, dripping water everywhere, making an absolute mess, and still not breathing right. Her pulse was rapid. She was probably going to die, right here in Yrhen’s space bathroom. She had the wherewithal to wrap a towel around herself, so at least they wouldn’t find her naked. 

She sat on the toilet, trying to breathe, then stood up, decided pacing was better, walked up and down the small bathroom, back and forth, shower still running, nerves shot, lungs burning. Often, during similar states, she would come to the realization that this was the worst one yet. And that was always disturbing. This is the worst I’ve ever felt, she’d think. This is the weakest I’ve ever been. 

A quick rap on the door made her freeze. “You need a towel, Eph?” It was Yrhen, right on the other side of the door. 

She looked down at the towel wrapped around her. 

“I don’t think there are any fresh ones in there,” he continued. “Just the one I used this morning. You want me to get you a fresh one?”

Oh. She was wrapped in Yrhen’s dirty towel. Would he be able to smell it on her? Could he smell it through the door? Were her pheromones leaking out into the hallway, alerting him to her dirty towel stealing habit, or worse, her panic attack?

The conundrum of answering aided her breathing a little, distracting her enough to let her body do its thing without her volatile nerves mucking it up. She sucked in a deep breath, and it was almost satisfying. She almost felt like she had oxygen in her lungs again. 

“Too late,” she settled on, letting her back rest heavily against the door. “I’m already all up in this towel. It’s mine now.”

She thought she heard him laugh, but it was hard to tell through the door and over the racket the shower was making. She hoped he’d walk away after that, but a few moments later, after a short pause, he spoke again. This time his voice was louder, like he was pressing his face to the door. There was only a thin layer of metal between them, and so his words nearly vibrated against the back of her skull. 

“Do you need anything else?”

Oh no. These words weren’t spoken with lightness. It wasn’t a come on. It wasn’t an inquiry about soaps or linens. He sounded concerned. 

She groaned, hiding her face in her hands. He probably had sensed her distress coming from the bathroom. He’d said that was largely how his species communicated, hadn’t he? And he’d answered the call of her panic like a moth to a flame, bringing with him his concern and his fresh towels. What a jackass. 

She pressed her palm against the door until it slid open. As she’d imagined, he was right there, looking startled that the door had moved so suddenly. Steam billowed out of the bathroom, and so did Ephraim, scooting past him in the towel and padding down the hall to her room—Sidero’s room—and making that door slide open, too. 

“You left the shower running,” Yrhen said, keeping up with her. “Are you done?”

“Yes, I’m done.” 

“That’s a waste of water,” he chided halfheartedly. 

“Well, I love wasting water, so too bad.” 

Lav breezed by, gaze flashing between Ephraim and Yrhen. Her head tilted. “Did you leave the shower running?”

“Yes!” Ephraim shouted. “I did it on purpose. Meaningless waste of resources is my favorite thing.” 

“Relax, crazy. I’ll turn it off. Jesus Christ.” Lav disappeared into the bathroom, humming Britney Spears. The shower turned off moments later, but Lav remained within, her singing getting louder as she did whatever it was she was doing in there.

She tried to close her door so she could die in peace, but Yrhen was standing in the doorway, exactly where she didn’t want him to be. The concern that had been in his voice earlier wasn’t on his face, which was a relief, but she didn’t trust that it wasn’t still lingering close to the surface somewhere. If he tried to pity her, she’d clobber him. 

“If you’re trying to get your towel back, you’re gonna have to wait,” she snapped. 

“I was actually thinking of something else,” he replied coolly, crossing his arms and leaning. His big shoulder pressed against the door frame. “You’ve got stitches.”

He must have seen them when she was walking away from him. “Don’t be a perv.”

“I was going to offer to take them out for you. The wound looks healed. If you just leave them in there, your back’s gonna get wrecked.”

“Nice try. They’re the dissolvable kind. I don’t need your help.”

“Nice try. That’s a lie,” he accused. Correctly. 

“How do you know?” 

“I just know.” 

And she believed him. It was in the flash of his eyes and the set of his mouth, in the way he was slowly, very slowly, inching his way past the threshold of her door, worming his way into her space—or, she supposed, Sidero’s space. 

“It doesn’t bother you to be back in his old room?” she asked, pleased when the sting landed and he flinched. 

“Don’t be a bitch,” he said, stepping all the way inside. She could see now that he had a small med kit in his hand. He was prepared for this. He’d seen the stitches earlier, or heard of them from Lav, and he’d stalked her from the bathroom with the predetermined goal of fixing her. “Unless that’s all you’re capable of.”

“What if it is?” she asked, making sure the towel was secure before sitting on the bed. 

“Then that’s fine,” he said. “Be a bitch. But that means I get to be one, too.” He sat next to her on the bed and pushed her shoulder, forcing her to turn, putting her back to him. “Let me look at these stitches.”

She didn’t clobber him, because he was being an asshole, and Ephraim could deal with that. She wasn’t in danger of crumbling in the face of it. She allowed the back of her towel to dip down a little, enough to show the entire wound. “It’s a little over a week old,” she informed him. “I heal pretty well.”

“Doubtful. You’ve got scars all over the place.” He didn’t do anything weird and intimate, like trace his fingers down the line of her stitches. He just broke open the med kit and pulled out some tweezers and a small pair of scissors. “I assume you got this one in your long war against the dwellers.” He said “dwellers” like it was silly, which made her angry, which made it easier for her to handle his touch when he finally reached for the first stitch, knuckles grazing her back as he pulled it high enough with the tweezers to snip. 

“Yep,” she answered, refusing to wince when she felt the tug. “White, scaly ones with too many legs and razors for feet. Charming little things.”

“Ah, yes,” Yrhen sighed, mockingly reminiscent. “Dorgans. A ruthless race. They make excellent mercenaries, I hear. I guess it got a good taste of you.” Tug, snip, subtle graze of knuckles. 

“That wouldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been a freshly hatched batch of Dorgan babies waiting to ambush me. Shit, I never got the rest of my money from that lady.”

“You fought an entire nest?” he asked. The doubt in his voice made her glare at him over her shoulder. “Don’t punch me, I’m just surprised. They’re notoriously nasty. Vicious fighters.”

“Yeah, well, so am I.” She turned back around so she wouldn’t have to see his stupid face. “Hurry up. Lav is so much better at this than you.”

“Almost done, killer. Stop fidgeting.”

She fidgeted more, just to be contrary, and paid the price for it when he pinched her with the tweezers. After that, she stilled, letting him work. He was actually proving quite proficient with the extraction of stitches, but she’d never admit to it. Just like she’d never admit that her breathing was almost back to normal now, or that the irrational fear of death had subsided. She very nearly felt calm as he quickly snipped away. 

“You have nice skin,” he commented out of nowhere. 

“Yeah, and you have a great personality,” she replied. “You done yet?”

“Yeah, I’m done. Hold on a second.” She heard the clunk of the tweezers and scissors being dropped back into the med kit, then felt a cool cream on her back. It wasn’t a lingering touch, so she didn’t try to steal the scissors and stab him with them. “It should help prevent scarring,” he offered casually as his finger ran up and down the line of her healed wound, just a few cursory swipes to rub in the ointment before he was moving away from her. 

The bed bounced from the disappearance of his weight and she looked up at him, hand clutching at her towel. “The comment about your personality was sarcastic,” she said, “in case you were hoping I’d invite you to tea or something.”

He laughed. “I don’t like tea, so that’s great.”

I don’t like you, she was tempted to say. She should have said it. But for some reason, she didn’t. She just stared at him, her back tingling from the ointment, and wondered why she wasn’t actively, literally kicking him out. 

She heard Lav’s voice out in the hallway, high and complainy and asking through the intercom, “Do you guys get cable up here?” Silence, followed by a sad, “I’m missing Buffy.”

It seemed to make Yrhen remember where he was and who he was talking to. He gave his head a shake, hair falling into his eyes. “I’ll leave you to it,” he said, turning for the door. 

“Thanks,” she said, which was a significant moment because she never said thank you. But he didn’t know that, so he just smiled and left the room, door sliding open and closed. “Thanks?” she repeated, slowly and to herself. 

She swiftly dressed and towel-dried her hair, wrapping herself up in Sidero’s old plaid shirt, and went to the port window to glare at the stars. Space was making her soft. The sooner they could clear Yrhen’s name, the sooner she could get back to Blossom and…not kill dwellers, because they’d all be gone, but she’d find something to do. And it’d be great. And she could forget about all of this. She was good at forgetting things, if she tried really hard. She’d already made herself forget what had caused her panic attack in the shower. She’d already made herself forget His name and His face and His voice. She’d already made herself forget the trace of knuckles up her back.

She pulled on her blue spandex pants, rolling up the cuffs so she wouldn’t trip, and slipped into her penny loafers, which had really been through it. They were probably having a good time though, having spent the last five years pushed to the back of her closet. Now they were in outer space, having adventures. Probably the first pair of penny loafers to ever be on an adventure quite like this one.

Wary of too much time to introspect, she made her way into the hall and found everyone gathered back in the mess. Lav had freshened up her makeup and had her hair in a high ponytail that swished dramatically with every turn of her head. Noltan was sitting beside her on top of the table, like they didn’t know how to use chairs, and Yrhen was pretending to smoke one of Lav’s candy cigarettes. He looked like a doofus, so she came up and stole it from him, taking a fake drag. Fevek wasn’t there, but Ephraim had decided she probably wasn’t a real person, just some kind of group auditory hallucination.

“Hectory says we’ll be on Bittlesby within the hour,” Noltan reported. 

“That was fast,” she said, keeping the cigarette away from Yrhen’s reaching hands, pretending like it was the best smoke of her entire life. “Can we wear pants on this island?” Everyone was wearing them but Lav. And somehow, somewhere, she’d acquired fishnet stockings. Incredible.

“Pants are allowed and encouraged,” Yrhen answered, finally reclaiming his cigarette and sucking on the tip with enthusiasm before blowing out invisible smoke. God, he was a nerd. “Nice shirt,” he commented, eyes narrowing on Ephraim’s flannel. 

Knowing it was Sidero’s and feeling cruel, she plucked innocently at the sleeves and smirked. “You like it?”

“Of course I do,” he answered, revealing a soft smirk of his own. “It’s mine.”

He sauntered past, leaving her to gape down at the plaid she’d been sure belonged to his ex. It’d been under the bed, after all. How could it have—she coughed into her elbow, trying to hide her blush in the crook of her arm. Like a naïve little kid, she’d assumed it was the ex’s shirt, but of course it was Yrhen’s. He’d just…removed it in his boyfriend’s room, because that’s what couples did. She’d been sleeping in Yrhen’s shirt and sporting it around her waist and using it as a pillow, and she didn’t know why that was so much worse than it being Sidero’s, but it was. 

Still, she couldn’t bring herself to change. Didn’t feel like it. She liked it. It was soft and blue and reminded her of high school hallways and Earth. Plaid flannel wasn’t something that was meant to be in space. And now that Yrhen had admitted it was his, she couldn’t take it off. Because that would be proving her discomfort, when really she was quite, quite comfortable. 

“You’re so weird,” Lav said. “Nolty, isn’t she the weirdest?”

Noltan shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re pretty weird, too.”

“I didn’t say weird was a bad thing,” replied Lav, patting the top of Ephraim’s head and squeezing Noltan’s knee until he laughed and squirmed away. “Ephie, are you ready to meet the competition? You want me to do your makeup again?”

“What competition?” she asked, busying herself in the rainbow cabinet, where there was a plethora of Earth snacks, as well as a multitude of things she’d never seen that were definitely not from Earth. She settled on a Poptart, would need the sugar to get through the conversation she could sense was about to happen. She missed the simpler days, when Lav wore her sunglasses and Ephraim didn’t have to directly face her penetrating gaze. Because it was a lot, honestly. Too much. 

“Speaking as someone who read the book and spent a lot of time examining the author bio pic in the back, Sidero Wulbrox is, like, the definition of attractive Castinof male.”

“Okay?”

“As in he looks a lot like Yrhen, but with dark hair.”

“Why is this important?”

“Because he looks like that, and you look like this,” Lav answered, arms now flapping emphatically. 

“I think she looks pretty,” Noltan said. 

“She’s a pretty girl,” Lav said, still flapping, “but when you take a pretty girl and put her next to the prettiest girl, she’s not as pretty.”

“You’re saying Sidero Wulbrox is the prettiest girl,” Ephraim sounded out carefully. 

“So pretty.”  
“Why does that matter? We’re gonna be interrogating him, probably torturing him a little.” She bit into her Poptart. “It’s not like we’re going to be having our pictures made together. Christ, you’re giving me a complex. Shut up.”

“You’ll be torturing him and stuff, yes, but Yrhen will be looking at you side by side while you do the torturing.”

“Oh my god, I’m not listening to you.”

“And you know as well as I do that some people look really good when they’re being tortured. Like, it brings out their sweatiest, angstiest side. You’re going to be bringing out the prettiest girl’s sexiest side, is what I’m trying to say to you.”

“And that’s what I’m trying not to hear,” Ephraim muttered, putting her hands over her ears. “You’re the worst. Why should I care if he sees us side-by-side?”

“She has a point, Lav,” Noltan said, breaking off a piece of Poptart for himself, which was risky, but ultimately allowed, because he appeared to be siding with Ephraim. “From what Hectory’s told me, Yrhen hates Sidero, and he doesn’t hate Ephie at all. Really doesn’t hate her. So even if she’s next to the prettiest girl, I don’t think that’ll matter much to him, you know?”

Ephraim regretted letting him eat some of her Poptart. She regretted walking into the mess at all. “I’m so confused. I’m leaving.”

“You can’t run away from all your problems, Ephie,” Lav called as she made her hasty retreat back into the hallway. 

“Yeah, I can!” she returned, right before she ran into Yrhen’s chest, because this was the smallest spaceship ever, and she couldn’t walk two feet without running into someone. She sighed, utterly over everything and everyone. “I need to get off this ship.”

“Lucky you,” he replied, stiff lipped. “Hectory’s about to set us down.” He made to move past her, but she blocked his path. Didn’t know why, just knew she needed to keep him in front of her a moment longer. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What?” he asked. He sounded pissy, which she enjoyed. 

“Nervous?” she asked, and she’d meant for it to sound snippy and rude, like a taunt. Instead it sounded like the opposite. She was feeling opposite: upside down and inside out, not like herself at all. 

The look he gave her was strange, and she couldn’t blame him for that; she’d just asked a sincere question about the state of his nerves. “A little,” he admitted. “It’s been a long time, and the last time I saw him…I left that shirt in his room. So.”

They both looked down at the plaid Ephraim was wearing. 

“I don’t really know how to act around him,” he continued with a gusty sigh. 

“Act mad. Because you are. And he deserves it. He’s an asshole.”

“You think I’m an asshole,” Yrhen said. 

“But he’s really one,” she assured, accidentally implying Yrhen wasn’t one at all. “It was his idea you run away in the first place, and at the first sign of trouble, he abandoned you. He’s the worst kind of asshole. Be mad at him.”

“I’m gonna try to.” He was smiling at her now. And Christ, his teeth were inhumanly straight. Probably because he wasn’t human.

“Not that my goal is to cheer you up or anything,” she said, “but there might be punching involved once we find this guy. And I usually work alone on these kinds of things, but if you want, I’ll let you punch him, too.”

“That makes me feel pretty special.”

“Whatever.” She studied her penny loafers. It was safer down there. “Do what you want. Just don’t be nervous. Don’t let him have that control over you. Guys like him don’t deserve it.”

You know when someone is acting strangely, and people say that ‘so-and-so must have been abducted by aliens’? That was Ephraim right now, in this moment, when she returned Yrhen’s smile. Only she really had been abducted by aliens. So it was okay for her to be acting strangely, wasn’t it? It’d be stranger if none of this affected her at all. 

“I’m gonna wait with Hectory,” she said, turning away before her smile could get any bigger. The sooner she was off this ship, the better.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for dubcon in this chapter. But it's not malicious. It's accidental. Also, we learn some disturbing things about Ephie's past.

No one was expecting the harem. 

But there it was, smackdab in the middle of the island on Bittlesby, an extravagant tent of silks scarves and beaded curtains, right in front of the big-ass mansion that Sidero Wulbrox owned. Even from their hiding spot behind some jungle trees, Ephraim could see all the harem boys walking around in their skimpy, jingly costumes. 

“I feel like I’m in an episode of Star Trek,” Ephraim whispered. “But, like, dirty.”

“Did you know your ex was a pervert with a harem?” Lav asked. 

“I sure didn’t,” answered Yrhen. 

Beside him, Noltan was blushing fiercely. “Are they wearing...thongs?”

The jungle they’d trekked through to reach the center of the small island was dense, and over the loud cacophony of insects, Ephraim could hear music coming from the harem. It sounded like “Space Jam”, but she couldn’t be sure. It was like hearing a song on the radio at the grocery store when the volume was too low; some of the melody would catch your ear, making you think it was one thing, but then the lady across the aisle would start coughing and you’d lose the train of recognition. 

“Is that “Space Jam”?” Val asked. 

Ephraim had noticed, during her short duration thus far in outer space, that much of Earth’s culture had permeated the rest of the universe like a plague. Yrhen wore plaid shirts before ever coming to Earth, Hectory liked Manilow, Fevek liked Twinkies, and the bartender at the moon resort had been speaking English. Now, a harem of thong-clad men was dancing around seductively to “Space Jam” and Ephraim decided this would probably be the part of her life that flashed before her eyes before she died. It just seemed like that kind of moment.

“Hectory showed me a picture of Sidero,” Noltan said, staring intently at the dancers. “I don’t see him anywhere in the tent, do you?”

Ephraim hadn’t seen the picture; she’d been too busy avoiding Yrhen, in case she smiled at him again. But she didn’t see anyone in the tent that didn’t look like an extra from the snake charming scene in the Chipmunks and Chipettes: Around the World movie. “Yrhen? Do you see him?”

“No,” he answered, sounding and looking like the walking embodiment of a headache. “He must be inside.”

“It’s pretty rude for him to keep his harem boys outside in a tent,” Lav scoffed, swaying her hips to the music. “Sidero Wulbrox is a freak.”

“What do we do?” Noltan asked, peering around a banana leaf with round eyes. 

“We need to go inside, I guess,” said Ephraim. “Or we could ask the harem?”

“Maybe we need a closer look,” Noltan suggested. “See that, um, pile of cushions?”

“The one they’re belly dancing around?” 

“Yeah. What if he’s right there and we can’t see him through all the gyrating? We should probably check.”

“Noltan’s right,” said Yrhen. “We don’t want to risk activating a security system by going into the house if we don’t need to. They look friendly enough. Let’s just approach slowly. If…if Sidero’s there, he won’t be able to get away.”

“Do you think he’s a flight risk?” asked Ephraim. The last thing she wanted to do was go on a manhunt through a jungle island if, god forbid, he got past them. 

“I think he’ll be surprised to see me,” Yrhen cautioned. “But I also think he’ll be too surprised and too curious to run.”

“I guess we’ll see,” she said. “Let’s approach the harem. Weird sentence.”

What should have been a dramatic moment was rendered preposterous, because as they neared the tent, it was proven beyond a doubt that yes, the harem boys were dancing seductively to “Space Jam”, and yes, it was hard not falling in step with the beat as they walked. 

They reached the first tent pole before they were finally noticed. A single harem boy stopped shaking his hips long enough to slink up to them, his eyes painted with sapphire blue charcoal and his lips smeared with a high-shine, honey-hued gloss. He smelled incredible, even from a few feet away, and Ephraim wondered if she might be able to nab a bottle of his perfume before they left. She didn’t wear perfume, but she would wear this. Man, it was nice. She didn’t realize she was leaning forward, into that delicious scent, until Lav put her hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. That shook her out of her olfactory daze long enough to hear that the harem boy was speaking. 

Only, she couldn’t understand what he was saying. He wasn’t speaking English, despite his love for “Space Jam”, and his language was a weird jumble of what—to her human ears—sounded like the chirpy noises cats made when they were birdwatching. And German.

She looked expectantly at Yrhen, to find he was looking expectantly at Lav, who was looking expectantly at Noltan, who was nodding his head at the harem boy as he translated the language with his impressive robot brain. After a few moments of chirp-filled suspense, he responded in the correct language, whatever that was. It sounded unnatural on his tongue at first, but after the first few syllables, it flowed from him like he’d never not spoken Harem Boy. 

Meanwhile, Ephraim was tapping her foot anxiously. The other boys were starting to stare, while never slowing the writhe of their hips, and they were wearing thongs under their sheer skirts, and it was all culminating into a very bizarre situation, where she was creeping backwards, her hand reaching out for something, something. Her fingers wrapped around a wrist. It was Yrhen’s. She gripped it tight and sidled up to him, pressing her waist to his waist. His skin was warm. And she was suddenly freezing cold, needed his heat. 

“Uh, what’s up?” he asked her, sounding rightfully confused. 

She couldn’t hear the Harem Boy anymore, and the “Space Jam” beat was a mere whisper compared to the jacked up beat of her heart. She pressed her hand to Yrhen’s chest, needing to feel his heartbeat. There was talking all around her, but the only voice she heard was Yrhen’s, clear and deep and coated in honey, like the Harem Boy’s lips. She wanted to taste his words. 

“Eph?” he said. “Ephraim?” He took her in his arms and angled his face, looking into her eyes. 

She took advantage of the opportunity and pushed forward, pressing her mouth to his. He was so surprised, his grip on her loosened and she was able to throw her arms around his neck and haul him even closer. “Oh my god,” she gasped before diving in to kiss him again. His lips were tense beneath hers, and he wasn’t quite reciprocating, but she was positive none of that mattered. “Yrhen,” she moaned against his mouth. 

He got a better grip on her, because he was so strong (sigh), and then she was being pulled away. She was vaguely aware it was Noltan and Lav holding her, and they were talking some nonsense she couldn’t hear. But it didn’t matter, because Yrhen was still in her line of vision and he was talking, too, and the sound of his voice was perfection. She ached. 

“How was I supposed to know what they were?” he was asking, only throwing fleeting glances at Ephraim between glaring hard at Lav and Noltan. 

She struggled to get back into his arms. Nothing mattered but that.

“I didn’t know the Yeji could affect humans like this!” he went on. 

She bit the hands holding her back and launched herself at Yrhen, jumping up to wrap her legs around his waist. She shoved her face into his neck and inhaled until her lungs were near to bursting. “Oh, yes,” she moaned into his skin. 

“Ephie, Eph. Hey, you’ve got to get off me,” he whispered in her ear, making her limbs quiver, making her rub against him. “Oh no, don’t do that, please. Oh, shit, you’re gonna kill me when this wears off. Will you guys get her the hell off me?”

Even if she didn’t understand, it was music to her ears, every word. She gnawed on his neck, licking the salt from his skin. She wanted to get him on the ground. Needed it. He sighed in relief when she slid from around his waist, then yelped when she kicked his legs out from under him. He fell on his back in the grass and she was quick to jump on top, straddling his waist, surging in to kiss him deep before more hands could drag her away. 

This time, he returned the kiss, and his hands came up to press against her back. But it only lasted a moment before he turned away again, gasping for breath. He put his hands in her hair, pulling at it, trying to keep her from kissing him again. Anger began to swell inside her. She needed him! Didn’t he know that? Did he want her to die? Because that was what would happen if he kept pushing her away!

“Noltan, it’s the Yuji. It has to be. Tell them to turn off whatever it is they’ve got turned on,” Yrhen ordered, and, oh, he sounded so good. 

She grabbed behind his neck and yanked him up, reached his mouth again, kissed him with vigor. She hadn’t kissed anyone in so long, and it was so nice. He was so nice. “Yrhen, Yrhen,” she whispered against his jaw and his neck as she proceeded to kiss every surface she could get to. “Your name is so stupid but you’re so hot.”

He rolled her onto her back and was suddenly on top of her, looming, and she really liked that, pushed her hips up against his hips, her back arching off the ground. She wasn’t cold anymore; she was hot like burning, like the sun, like a lightning strike. 

She raked her nails down his arms until he grabbed her wrists and pressed them, crossed, against her chest. He was looking down at her, but he was speaking to someone else. He sounded mad. “Noltan, tell them to cut it out! She’s human. The effect on her is stronger. Obviously.”

“Come here,” she beckoned, desperate for him. He still held her wrists, but her legs were free and she wrapped them around his waist again, squeezing him with her thighs. “I need you,” she panted. “Please.” She bucked up with her hips, groaning when she felt the hard length of him. 

His breath was strained, but he kept her pinned, wouldn’t reciprocate when she tried to start a grinding rhythm against him. “Hold on, Ephraim,” he said. Then, looking away from her, he said to someone else that didn’t matter, “Well, if he’s not here, I’m taking her inside. Maybe that’ll help.”

He moved away too abruptly, making her scream at the tragedy of it. But then he scooped her up, arms tucked under her knees and her back, and started walking through the harem tent with her pressed against his chest. It gave her the perfect opportunity to sink her teeth into his neck, her hands free to grope his chest and comb her fingers through his hair. 

“Sleep with me,” she whispered, delighted by the way his cheeks flushed. 

“That’s not quite what I’m thinking, but it’s close.” 

She was beginning to feel a little nauseous. There was sweat on her face, and she could feel a single cold drop rolling from under her arm. 

The light changed, which she was only vaguely aware of, and then she was being placed on something firm yet soft, and Yrhen was holding her face in his hands, staring down at her. His eyes were bluer than usual, very very blue. 

“The Yuji say the effects take some time to fade,” he said. “And that the comedown can be uncomfortable. I’m going to break a promise to you, so you can sleep. And then, when you wake up, you can kill me if you want, okay?”

“Mmm,” she moaned, past understanding. When he spoke again, she could no longer hear his words, just feel his careful touch as he pushed hair off her forehead. His lips moved, saying something, but Ephraim’s eyes were slipping closed and she couldn’t…she couldn’t see him…couldn’t do anything but feel the heat of his hands…and…

She woke up in an unfamiliar room, on an unfamiliar bed, with an unfamiliar headache, one that was dull and permeated through her entire body. She stared up at a gilded ceiling, too extravagant to be attractive, like whoever’d wanted it in their room was too desperate for something nice. 

Desperation. She remembered it through a fog, until she turned and saw Lav and Noltan and Yrhen, and then she remembered it perfectly. With shaky legs, she leapt from the bed and tackled Yrhen to the floor. She didn’t have any of her weapons, but she did have her hands, and she wrapped them around his throat, rabidly pissed.

Lav didn’t help him, but she did mock Ephraim’s rage, her ankles daintily crossed as she sat on top of a dresser, its design gilded and swirly, to match the ceiling. This was Sidero’s room, probably. What a douche. 

“If you kill him,” she said, “can we split the reward money?”

“Ephie, don’t kill him,” Noltan said. “It’s not his fault.”

“Not his fault?” she hissed, letting go of his neck with one hand so she could yank on his hair. Hard. “You used your pheromone bullshit on me and made me…made me.” She remembered kissing him, crawling all over him. She wanted to die from embarrassment. But she could make time to kill him first.

“I made you sleep,” Yrhen rasped. He wasn’t trying to get away, was keeping his hands carefully at his sides, not fighting her at all. “So you wouldn’t keep…”

“Molesting him,” Lav finished. 

“What?” She jumped off him, tripping on his feet and falling back on the bed. 

“It was the Yuji that made you all lusty,” Noltan explained. “The harem boys, I mean. They’re similar to Earth’s legend of the incubi. That’s what Lav said.”

“I’ve done some research on them,” Lav offered. “They have interesting mating habits, unlike some people I know. But I’ve never seen them have such a strong effect before.” She shrugged. “Must be because you’re a fragile little human. Easily manipulated. Their influence infected you immediately, and that’s when you started trying to jump Yrhen.”

“Oh my god.” She rolled over on the bed and tried to suffocate herself with a pillow. Then she pulled away, brows furrowing. The pillow smelled strange. She didn’t like it. Throwing it at Yrhen, she rose from the bed, beside herself with shame and fury. “You still pheroed me, or whatever it’s called,” she said. “Don’t pretend you didn’t. I remember all of it.”

“Good. Then you remember I was only trying to spare you from further regret.” He sighed, hauling himself off the floor and brushing invisible dirt from his pants. “But you’re right. I did make you a promise. Kill me, if you want. I won’t try to stop you.”

She glared at him. 

He glared right back. “I didn’t want to do it,” he said. “I was trying to help.”

She looked at him and remembered wrapping around him like a needy, slutty octopus. If he hadn’t made her go to sleep, who knows what would have happened? She had a very clear memory of the direction her mind had taken. She’d wanted him. Viscerally needed him, like, inside her. If he hadn’t stopped her, she might have tried to make him. 

She felt sick and turned from Yrhen to face the dramatically draped picture window. She could see the harem tent down below; the dancers were playing Jock Jams so loud, it practically vibrated the window frame. 

He was keeping his distance, but she could feel him anyway, feel the way he was watching her closely from across the room. She was so afraid he was going to tell her “it’s okay”, and was so relieved when he didn’t. He changed the subject instead, shifting the topic away from her unwanted advances and his unwanted pheromones. “I pheroed the Yuji to let us in the house and not raise an alert,” he said, quiet but firm. “They said Sidero isn’t home right now, but he should be back soon. When he gets here, he’ll be in for a nasty shock at who’s in his bedroom.”

She waited until her breathing had steadied before facing him, or anyone else in the room. “Okay. That’s good.” Her words were sticky; she was thirsty. “Is there anything to drink in this place?”

“Ooh, I’ll check out the kitchen,” Lav volunteered, popping off the dresser to her feet. “It looked huge when we passed it earlier. Nolty, come with.” She took his hand and practically ran out of the room, and though the door was left wide open, it felt like Ephraim’s entire world had dwindled down to this one room in space, trapped there with Yrhen, so she couldn’t ignore him.

“Sorry I molested you,” she forced out through the continuous rolls of nausea she was experiencing. 

“Sorry I broke my promise,” he said. 

And there it was. They were even. Neither things would have happened if the Yuji hadn’t messed with her, so neither of them could really be held accountable. That was what she reasoned, anyway, simply so she could meet his eyes again. She could forget this, if she tried. She could forget the way he’d kissed her back, just for a moment.

“Why did you bring me into your poker game?” she asked, as surprised by her sudden question as he was.

“Huh?”

“The other night. You knew I was there looking for you.” She moved away from the window, taking a few steps towards him. But just a few. “You’ve been hiding from mercs for ten years. So why didn’t you kick my ass out of your club when you knew I was there to find you? I could have been a merc.”

He laughed. “I knew you weren’t a merc. I thought you might be a spy, but definitely not a merc.”

“Why let a spy into your backroom? And then invite one upstairs?” The more she thought about that night, the less it made sense. For someone on the lam, he’d been awfully quick to let her into his personal space, given her lots of chances to stab him in the back that first night. 

“I could sense something from you,” he answered. “It made me curious.”

“Your weird pheromone thing?” she asked, and he nodded. “What did you sense?”

“A resolve I hadn’t felt in years. You were so enthusiastic about everything you did, everything you said. Your rudeness was this intricate, performative thing, and I was curious.”

“It wasn’t performative,” she snapped. 

“Okay,” he said, eyes bright, hands shoved into his pockets. “Let’s just say you were giving off major vibes of this…infectious ruthlessness. And I was into it.”

“You like them mean,” she said.

“Don’t you?” he returned. 

“I used to.”

“So did I.”

“Not anymore?” she asked, a little confused by what the hell they were even talking about anymore. And when had he moved closer? There was a meager yard between them. She couldn’t remember if he’d been the one to narrow it or if she had. 

“I sensed something else from you that night,” he said, completely ignoring her question, reminding her he was the worst. “And every night since.”

“It’s been, like, two nights,” she pointed out. Then, because his smile had changed into something strange, she asked, “What did you sense?”

He didn’t answer this time either, looked content to just look at her. Smiling. 

Feet running up hardwood stairs ruined their staring contest, and a moment later, Lav and Noltan barged into the room, arms full of snacks and water bottles, eyes bugging with excitement. 

“He’s here,” Noltan gasped, throwing his haul on the bed.

“Sidero,” Lav elaborated, merging her haul with Noltan’s and tossing a water bottle at Ephraim. “We saw him through the kitchen window, walking through the harem tent. He’s coming this way.”

“Shit,” Yrhen said, his entire body tensing up and his face falling grim. 

Ephraim swigged the water. “This is it,” she said, finally closing the distance to Yrhen so she could slap him on the back. She’d never been much of a back slapper, but this seemed like the right occasion for it, and the slap jogged him out of his nervous trance. He sucked in a breath and flashed a wide, forced grin. 

“Be mad,” she reminded him before positioning herself by the door.

Noltan and Lav moved to stand on the other side of the dresser, where they could be obscured while they munched on their shared bag of pilfered cheese nips. Yrhen moved to the other side of the door. When Sidero walked in, he wouldn’t see them until he was already in the room. And then they could pounce. She braced her back against the wall when she heard the steps coming up the stairs, and realized she couldn’t wait to make this guy pay, not only for what he’d done to Yrhen, but for what he’d done to Blossom. 

He was almost there, had no idea what was coming; there was no hesitance to his stride as he entered the bedroom. All she could see was the back of his head at first. Like Lav had warned, he was built much like Yrhen: broad and muscular and tall. His hair was black, straight, and to his shoulders. His shirt was maroon mesh. He stood in front of his bed, staring down at the pile of snacks, a hand coming up to rest at his hip. 

And then he turned around. 

He didn’t look how she remembered. Her memory had shifted his features, dulled the brightness of his eyes and the shine of his hair, made him a little shorter, a little less beautiful. But he smelled the same. Like the pillow she’d recoiled from earlier. And his voice was the same when he said, “Baby.” The same way he used to say it, and the way he said it now were exactly the same. So similar that she flinched, cowered. 

Sidero Wulbrox wasn’t just Yrhen’s ex. 

He was Ephraim’s. 

It was Him.

“Baby,” he said again, looking at her the same way he used to. The way he’d looked at her that night. “What are you doing here?”

She couldn’t breathe, let alone speak. Stood frozen, back plastered to the wall. Scenes flashed behind her eyes, memories she’d tried to forget. Tried so hard, every day. 

Sidero—Sydney, her Sydney—turned his head to appraise his other visitor. When he took in Yrhen’s presence, his cheeks dimpled from the force of his smile. Ephraim was going to throw up. Any second. 

“Yrhen?” His voice was smooth, but his eyes were hot amber. Dangerous. “Is that really you?”

Yrhen was stronger than Ephraim—or maybe his concern for her unusual reaction was enough to distract him from his own weaknesses. Regardless, he was not cowering from Sidero like a child, like Ephraim was. He was standing straight. He was mad, the way he’d wanted to be, the way she’d encouraged, before she knew Sidero was Him. Oh god, Him. 

“What is this?” Yrhen asked, and Ephraim realized he wasn’t stepping towards Sidero, but her, steadying the shake of her shoulders when he put his hand around her wrist. “Ephraim, what is this?”

“Yes,” Sidero said. “I’m curious about that myself.” He made room on his bed between cookies and potato chips, then plopped onto the mattress. “The Synthetic and the Noturok can come out from behind the dresser, by the way. An interesting team you’ve collected yourself, Yrhen. I congratulate you on its queerness.”

Lav and Noltan crept from behind the dresser and crossed quickly to Ephraim. Lav stood slightly in front of her, hands on her hips. Her eyes were swirling brightly, blanketing Sidero’s face in an eerie indigo glow. “You’re the boyfriend,” she accused.

Sidero’s brow scrunched up with condescending concern. “Aww, Ephraim. Boyfriend, singular? Really? You poor thing.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Lav spat, at the same time Yrhen’s head snapped to the side and he looked down at Ephraim in horror. 

She swallowed hard, bile coming up persistently. Choking her. She was still shaking. Yrhen was still holding tight to her wrist. 

“You and Ephraim?” Yrhen asked Sidero. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“He was a little more my type back then,” Sidero answered. He was so casual, so nonchalant for someone being faced by two exes from across the galaxy. 

The truth hit her, then, like a knockout punch, and she clutched at Yrhen’s arm. “Oh my god,” she whispered as her entire world began to crumble. “Oh my god.”

Yrhen stopped glaring at Sidero and turned his attention back to her. “Ephraim,” he whispered. It was all he said, because it was all he needed to say. 

It was finally her turn to do some talking. And she had a lot of it to do.

“The day my father died, I met him,” she began slowly as she picked reality from the crumbs of her memory. She couldn’t look at him, but she knew Sidero was looking at her, grinning. “Ten years ago. It must have been the same night your ship crashed, because his face was messed up. He had a deep gash on his forehead. It was bleeding pretty bad.”

They were all looking at her now, all listening. 

“My dad and I, we’d pulled over to see what the lights were. They were flashing too bright, we couldn’t see the ship. But we saw dwellers—mercs, I guess they were, but they just looked like monsters to us. They must have been after you, but they came for me and my dad when they saw us.” She heaved in a breath, preparing to speak her nightmares aloud for the first time. “I went for the knife in the glove compartment. But they were fast. My dad tried, but there was no way…we didn’t know what was going on. I thought they were monsters. I thought it was a dream.

“They hurt him. Bad. I was going to be next, but then he came out of nowhere. He saved me.” She still couldn’t look at Sidero, but he’d stood from the bed. He was wondering, she knew, how much of the truth she’d finally realized and how much of it she was about to share. “He told me my dad couldn’t be saved, even though he was still breathing. Even though he was begging for me to get help.” She wiped at her eyes. Couldn’t tell if this new truth was better or worse than the old one. “I never knew why I did it. Before now. Now that I know what you really are.” She had to face him for this. Had to. She stepped from the grip of the others, forcing herself to look at his face. “You convinced me to finish him off, to put him out of his misery.”

Behind her, Lav gasped. 

“And I did it,” Ephraim choked out, admitting it finally. “I killed him. I always thought it was because I was fucked up, but you, you pheroed me, didn’t you? You manipulated me that night, and the entire time we were together.”

“It’s a touch more complicated than that, baby,” Sidero insisted. 

“Let her finish,” Yrhen growled. 

“Yeah, let me finish,” she said, feeling a burst of strength and eating it up like she was starving—she was. “I killed my father because you told me it was the only option. I brought you back to my home. I slept with you. I didn’t care when you hurt me. And when you left, with no word, no note, no nothing, it was like a haze had lifted, like I was waking up from one of those dreams when you don’t know what day it is or what time. And I was disgusted with myself, at last, for all the things you’d done to me and all the things I’d done with you. And until this very second, I thought it was me who’d made all these disgusting choices. But you’re not human. You’re Castinof, and you kept me pliant, kept me hypnotized by your pheromone magic for an entire year.” Her throat was raw. Had she been screaming this? She couldn’t remember. “You made me kill my dad so he’d be out of the way, didn’t you? So you could freeload off the inheritance money. That’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“Sidero, that better not be the truth,” Yrhen said. When Ephraim glanced back at him, his spikes had emerged from his knuckles, his shoulders, and his spine. 

“It’s not the whole truth,” Sidero answered. He was still calm, but his voice was layered with something new. Something sincere. When he met Ephraim’s gaze, his eyes were no longer heated; they were sad. “I’ve often regretted the way things happened that year. If you’d both allow it, I’d love the opportunity to explain my actions, irredeemable as they’ve been.”

“I think we should string you up by the balls instead,” Lav suggested. 

“I agree,” Noltan said. 

Yrhen took Ephraim’s hand, prompting her to look at him. “Do you want to hear?” he asked her, like it was solely up to her, like he wasn’t also being traumatized by this entire thing. 

“We have to, I guess,” she decided. She wanted to hear it, needed the explanations, even if they were lies. “Okay, Sydney,” she said. “Sidero Wulbrox. We’re listening.”


	13. Chapter 13

The way he spoke, the cadence of his voice, was just as alluring as it had always been. She would have worried he was influencing her mind, but with Yrhen and the others so close, she trusted her mind was her own. They’d be picking up on any pheromone magic Sidero might be putting off. 

“Yrhen, you remember when the ship went down. The mercs were right on our tail. I pushed you ahead of me, out of the ship.” This was how Sidero’s story began. “I’d hit my head when we landed, remember? Hit it hard. To be honest, at that point, I didn’t know for sure who you were, just that I needed you to live. Your life was more important than my own. That’s all I remembered well. Much everything else was in a fog.

“Confused, bleeding, and terrified, I still got you running away, but the mercs needed to be dealt with. A car pulled off the side of the road, drawing their attention away from myself, saving me at the last minute. Ephraim, it was you. And your father.”

She looked away from him, heard his sigh. 

“You were the distraction that saved my life, but I couldn’t let you die, not when I saw you. So young and pretty and scared to death. But brave. Already with a weapon in your hands, ready to help defend your father. I went to you, managed to kill the mercs, but my head injury made me sluggish. I couldn’t save your father.”

“He was alive,” she whispered, boiling mad.

“He was in agony,” Sidero said. His voice was pleading. He sounded so distraught, she chanced another glance at him. His amber eyes glistened. “I was concussed, but you were in shock, Ephraim. You must realize that now. Your father had been gravely injured by the mercs. The hospital couldn’t have saved him, and he was suffering. I did not use my influence. I promise you that. I explained his condition as well as I could, and you made the choice yourself. It was the morally just decision, and you were so brave, so strong.”

She didn’t believe it. She wouldn’t have been able to make that choice on her own, she was sure. But the others were entranced as he continued his story, so she remained silent, not wanting to break the spell of his words. Yrhen needed to hear this as much as she did. 

“You invited me back to your home out of the kindness of your heart, realizing I wasn’t well. I’m afraid my head injury was even more profound than either of us had realized. By the time we arrived that first night, my memory was all but gone. I didn’t remember Castinof, or the crash, or the princess. Or even you,” he added, gazing warmly at Yrhen. “I only knew this wonderful young man had saved my life, and I’d saved his.”

“Young woman,” Lav and Yrhen corrected at the same time. 

Ephraim blushed, wondered when she’d started doing that so frequently. 

Sidero studied her. “Yes, I can see that now,” he said. “Still lovely. It’s good to see you, truly.”

“Just shut up and keep talking,” she answered. 

His laugh was a light, almost-cough, and then he continued as directed. “I hope you do not think our time together was entirely wasteful. I recall you were quite enthusiastic at the time, to have my company, and do not propose to think it was a one-sided arrangement. We had a trade, didn’t we? There was something you wanted from me, if I was to remain with you, wasn’t there?”

Her chest swelled and sank at the same time. He was right. There had been something she’d gotten from him. “You taught me to fight.”

“Yes, I did. You never wanted to be as powerless as you were the night your father died, and I vowed to make sure you wouldn’t be. The hurts you claim I put you through were self-inflicted, in a way, weren’t they? You pushed me hard to push you hard.”

It was true. It was all true. More truths she had worked diligently to bury. “Yes.”

“For me, it was an enjoyable year. I would have stayed with you in that mansion forever, Ephraim. If I had not, one day, remembered.”

“You got your memory back, just like that?” Lav asked. 

“It’s said to happen that way a lot, with amnesia sufferers,” Noltan supplied softly. 

Sidero nodded at him graciously. “It came upon me suddenly. Ephraim, you were in the shower. I looked out the bedroom window at the stars and Yrhen’s face came to my mind, clear and crisp and commanding. At once, the memories flooded back. I remembered begging you to flee with me from Castinof, the night before you were to wed the princess. I remembered the last night we’d spent together on the ship. I remembered everything. The crash, the image of you running away from me through the smoke.” He was emotional, so wrought with feeling that Ephraim was beginning to feel traces of it in the air. Beside her, Yrhen was clearly affected as well. His eyes were stuck on Sidero, wet with unshed tears, his mouth drawn severe. 

“You remembered me,” Yrhen said. “So you wrote a book condemning me of murder?”

Sidero’s hands flew in front of his chest, as if to ward off the accusation. “This is where our lines have been crossed the furthest, my love.”

Yrhen tensed at the endearment. So did Ephraim. 

“As soon as my memory was back, I fled from Ephraim with no word or reason. That was wrong of me, I know it. But I was not in my right mind. I was incensed with the desire to find you. But the ship was long gone and the only way of getting off Earth was to contact a nearby transport. It was the mercs that picked me up. But they didn’t try to kill me. In fact, their anger with me had disappeared. It seemed the year had cleared my name, though I quickly discovered yours was muddier than ever.”

“Of course,” Yrhen sighed. 

“I traveled directly to your parents, to explain to them that you didn’t do it, nor was I kidnapped that night,” Sidero continued passionately, pacing before the bed. “But try as I might, they would not hear the truth. Yrhen, I hate to tell you this, but your parents are terrible. That first year I was gone, they reformed their political careers around gunning for your capture. And I’ll tell you what, they were not pleased to hear my side of things. They threatened my life, Yrhen.” His hand clutched at his chest, face collapsing in anguish that permeated the air. “The only way they would let me live was if I vowed to never speak the reality of that night again. They kept me locked away in the highest tower room of the estate, and didn’t let me out until the book was written, my name and face plastered to it.”

“You didn’t even write the book?” Lav asked. 

“Not a word of it, but that didn’t stop Yrhen’s parents from sending me on a promotional tour across the galaxies to talk about it. Everyone wanted to know about the princess-killing prince. No one but me and your parents knew the real killer was still out there somewhere, free. And laughing, probably, at your supreme misfortune.”

They were all quiet for a moment, soaking in this new information. 

“Ephraim,” Sidero continued at long last, “the only time I used my pheromones on you was when you slept, to help ease your nightmares. This I swear to you. And Yrhen, I never would have left you if I’d not lost my mind in the crash. You must believe me, both of you. My conscience has haunted me all these years, famous for the horrendous lies I’m forced to spread. Made all the worse that I must constantly be asked questions about the man I love, the man I thought I’d never see again.”

“Sid,” Yrhen whispered. 

“I know. I know it’s too late and too little. I don’t expect you to still love me the way I still love you. But can you at least believe me when I say nothing I have done has been with malice in my heart, just the will to survive the court of your parents. You know as well as I how treacherous it is.”

Ephraim and Yrhen looked at each other. 

“Um,” Noltan said. “Can we address the initial reason for coming here, and how this may prove more useful than resorting to torture?”

“Wait. You came her to torture me?” Sidero asked, amusement finally creeping back into his voice. 

“Our goal is to clear Yrhen’s name, so he can get the hell off my planet,” Ephraim said. “And stay off. We tracked you down with the sole purpose of making you confess what really happened to the princess. There was…some talk of torture, yeah.”

“But that’s before you knew it was me,” Sidero said. 

“Uh huh.”

“And so now you don’t want to torture me, right?”

She just stared at him. Blinked. 

“The point,” Noltan cut in, “is that we don’t have to torture you at all anymore. Sidero Wulbrox, if that is your real name—” 

“It is.”

“—you must come with us to your home planet and tell the Castinof Court what you just told us. We’ll go beyond the authority of Yrhen’s parents if we have to.” Noltan faltered. “I mean, right? Are we gonna make him do that?”

“Yes, we are,” Lav answered. 

“No, you aren’t,” said Sidero. “You won’t have to make me do anything.” He took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders and standing tall. Ten years hadn’t aged him, not one bit. He was a glowing, beautiful thing. “I will gladly return with you and face the court.” He was a pacer. Ephraim wondered if she’d adopted that quirk from him, wondered if a year was enough time to take from him anything worth keeping. “As you can see, my life has been a shallow one. I’ve spent the last decade moving from planet to planet, home to home, filling my days with superficialities, like the harem, and other, more shameful vices.”

“More shameful than a harem?” Ephraim asked. 

Sidero shook his head, eyes soulful. “If only you knew. The two of you arriving here…I cannot come to the conclusion that it’s anything but fate. A final chance for me to reclaim my life.”

“So you’ll come with us freely?” Yrhen asked, all hesitance and complicated eyebrows. “You will stand before the court and renounce the book? Reveal the truth? That you are my alibi the night of the princess’ murder?”

“I will.” Sidero walked forward, went to his knee before Yrhen, and crossed his arm over his chest. “I vow myself to this task, my prince. I swear it on my very life, and my very love.”

Yrhen turned away, flustered. “Ephraim, this isn’t just my decision anymore.”

She supposed it wasn’t. But that didn’t make it any easier. She examined Sidero, scanning him from the tip of his perfectly shiny black hair to his handsomely bent knee, the toned and tan skin beneath the mesh to the familiar pierce of his amber irises. She’d not hated him all these years, because she could never bring herself to think about him long enough for hatred to form. When she thought of him now, as he knelt before her, all she felt was an intense confusion. She could not forgive him anymore than she could forgive herself, but the more she learned about that night so long ago, the more she discovered that her dad had not been the only victim. Yrhen had been abandoned, she had lost her only family, but Sidero…had he been a victim, too? 

She tried to squeeze herself into his shoes. He’d lost not only his lover, but his entire life. She’d never experienced the loss of memory—as much as she’d tried—but she imagined that, against one’s will, it was a painful thing. He had left her in the lurch, taken from her all he needed, but could she blame him? Was any of this anyone’s fault but the ruthless indifference of the universe?

Above all, she reminded herself this was a job, and just because He had unexpectedly entered the scene, it shouldn’t change the outcome. She was a professional, and this was the task she’d set herself, and the one she’d be accepting payment for. The goal had never been finding forgiveness in herself or forgiveness for Sidero, it had been clearing Yrhen’s name, and thus in doing so, clearing the streets of Blossom of dwellers. 

She didn’t like it. But as Lav would say, she didn’t much like anything. 

“A willing testimony in person,” she said, “will be better than anything we could have punched out of him.” She made herself meet Sidero’s eyes. “I probably would have dragged you with us anyway. It doesn’t make a difference that Yrhen’s ex-boyfriend is suddenly mine, too.”

“Ephie, are you sure?” Lav muttered at her side. 

No. “Yes. Just keep him away from me.” She jabbed a finger toward him, thankful she’d left her knife on the ship, because she may have been tempted to jab it into his carotid. “We’re not cool, and I’m not interested in becoming cool. Got it?”

“Got it,” he replied. “Man, you’re still scary as hell, you know that?”

“I know that,” she answered, walking past him and scooping snacks into her arms. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here before I get sex-drugged again by alien harlots.”

“Did my Yuji affect you?” Sidero asked, rising off his knees and standing too close to Yrhen’s side than she would have, personally, preferred. 

She ignored him, as well as the way Yrhen turned himself instinctively to face his ex. The problem, she realized, was that he’d seen them side by side. “Let’s just go. It’d be great if this day could be over.”

When they returned to the ship, she couldn’t go back to the room she’d been staying in, because it used to be Sidero’s, and she could only assume he’d be wanting it back. She walked ahead of the others, right past Hectory—who was waiting for them in the hall—and into the bathroom, where she could finally have a moment of peace to digest things without everyone staring at her for a reaction. 

Sydney. Sydney was Sidero. And Sidero, apparently, wasn’t such a bad guy, after all? Time had warped him, twisted him into something worse than reality, so she could have another monster to blame for everything. So she could point at something specific and be like, “This. This is why I am the way I am. See?” 

Sidero wasn’t that something anymore, couldn’t be. 

She braced her hands on the sink and examined her face close up, too close. On the walk back to the ship, Sidero had tried to take Yrhen’s hand, and Yrhen had brushed him off, walked a little faster to keep away from him. He’d ended up beside her, but they hadn’t spoken a word. Something had shifted. Everything felt different now, with this new discovery of another thing they had in common. 

Her eyes were tired and her complexion was permanently flushed, with anger and embarrassment and a deep-seated shame she feared she’d never shake. When she closed her eyes, she didn’t see flashes of that night. She only saw the backs of her eyelids. Her phantoms were gone. Erased by a lovesick alien with a history of amnesia and too much affection in his eyes when he looked at Yrhen. 

She splashed her face with water and could only hope the trip to Castinof would be a short one. 

Lav was waiting for her outside the bathroom, Harry perched atop her shoulder with a sour expression on his little face. His leaves were exceptionally green today; he was thriving outside his ceramic pot. Ephraim might have been a little bit jealous. 

“What?” she asked, because they were both staring at her, and she didn’t have the patience for anything anymore. 

Lav offered her a candy cigarette. 

Ephraim took it, then followed her into the mess, which was blessedly empty. But on the short walk there, she heard the low mutterings of two men talking behind a door. In Yrhen’s bedroom. 

She sat on top of the table, while Lav rummaged around inside the rainbow cabinet. When her head re-emerged, Harry had a root twisted around a bottle of something alcoholic. At least, Ephraim hoped it was alcoholic. 

She watched as Lav poured three shots into three pink shot glasses. “Safe for humans, I promise,” she said, handing Ephraim one. “I know, because I’ve slipped it to you many times during our time together. It’s tasteless, but packs a punch of happy. You’ll see.”

Ephraim grimaced, but downed the drink. Lav was right; it was tasteless. “You slipped an alien concoction into my drinks?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” asked Lav after she and Harry had downed their own. “You have a habit of being intolerable. You are a mean, grumpy human.”

“Thanks.”

Lav started picking at her nail. The acrylics were starting to grow out. This impromptu adventure into outer space was starting to show on her usually perfect visage. It was more endearing than Ephraim had expected. 

“So,” she began, “all of that happened.” That being the reveal of Sidero and her relation to him. Luckily, she didn’t need to explain this; Lav was more than aware of the topic at hand. 

“What is it with you and Castinofs?” she wondered aloud, sucking at her cigarette. “Maybe I finally found something interesting for my research paper.”

Ephraim groaned and scooted back on the table so she could bang her head against the wall and properly slump. “I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. Why is everyone I know an alien?”

“You’re lucky, I guess,” Lav supplied. “Are you not having a good, interesting time?”

“I hate everyone. This time is not good.”

“Do you need another shot?” Lav poured her another, but Ephraim refused it. “Yrhen and Sidero are speaking in his room, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ephraim sighed. “Yrhen can do what he wants. If Sidero is, like, in love with him, it’s none of my business.” She paused. Took that second shot after all. “Do you think Yrhen is still in love with Sidero?”

“The prince should not be gossiped about in this fashion,” Harry interjected, startling Ephraim. “He has been through a tremendous stress today and must be treated with respect and kindness.”

Lav stroked his leaves. “She respects the prince, darling. Relax.” She scrunched her nose at Ephraim. “Harry has been spending a lot of time with his new liege. He likes to sit on his bedside table and provide him with comforting greenery.”

“He likes plants,” Ephraim whispered. 

“Hmm?”

“Yrhen,” she clarified. “His club was full of plants and so was his apartment, remember? He likes greenery.”

Harry’s stems straightened at the praise. “I shall endeavor to continue brightening the prince’s life aboard this ship, then.” He leapt from Lav’s shoulder and trotted towards the door. “Perhaps the prince’s attractive consort would also enjoy my leaves. I think I shall wait in his room and surprise him with my greenness. Excuse me, ladies.” 

He disappeared around the corner and Ephraim stared after him. In all of this weirdness, Harry the Houseplant was probably still at the top of the Weird List. 

“I’ve got to go tell Fevek about what happened,” Lav declared, thrusting the rest of the bottle into Ephraim’s hands. “She’s gonna freak. She hates Sidero.” She stopped in the doorway and whipped her ponytail around, casting a hard gaze at Ephraim. “I hate him, too, just so you know. For what he did to you.” And then she was gone. 

It was a strange thing, being jealous and not knowing quite the origin, not knowing quite who to be jealous of. But when she heard the combined whispers of Yrhen and Sidero behind the closed door of his room, she couldn’t pinpoint the unsettling feeling in her chest. With a resolve to ignore any and all sensations related to whether or not more than talking was occurring, she streamlined down the hall to the piloting station. That door was closed, as well, but, knowing she wasn’t afraid of the people on the other side, she placed her palm against the cool metal until it slid open. 

“Ephie!” Noltan yelped. Noltan, who was sitting astride Hectory’s lap—or had been, before she’d entered the room. Now, after throwing himself off with impossible speed, he was in a clumsy heap on the floor, flat on his ass. 

Ephraim gawked at him, because he was shirtless, and because Hectory was too. 

“Do they not knock on Earth?” Hectory sneered, sliding out of his chair to take Noltan’s hand and help him up. 

“Do they not put socks on the doorknob in space?” Ephraim returned, rattled by the confirmation that she was now the official seventh wheel on this ship. Yrhen had Sidero. Noltan had Hectory. And she was pretty sure Lav and Fevek were a thing. Unless she hooked up with Harry, Ephraim was the odd one out, as always. Once upon a time—that time being only a few days ago—she would have been pissed off about it; now, she was just sad. It had been such a strange day. 

Noltan pulled his shirt back on and went to her. “We thought we had some time, sorry. What’s up? Do we need to discuss the plan or something?”

Right. Of course. He assumed her presence was related directly to the plan, the job. If she was here, it couldn’t be to socialize, but to bitch and boss. She took a step back, horrified, because she knew then that she had not come to Noltan for anything other than companionship. It was so unlike her. She didn’t need people this way, hadn’t in a long time. So why was she seeking it now? Why couldn’t she stop changing for the worst aboard this goddamn ship?

“I was just going to ask Hectory,” she began, her own voice harsh in her ears, “when we’ll be arriving on Castinof.”

Hectory, who had remained unabashedly shirtless throughout this encounter, fixed her with suspicious eyes. She was glad he wasn’t a Castinof, glad he couldn’t detect the turmoil rolling off her in fat, miserable waves. “Tomorrow morning,” he answered. “And the sky’s still clear of merc ships. It seems they haven’t the slightest where we’ve disappeared to. It’s strange. I’d actually expected more of a challenge than this, getting to Castinof. But perhaps, finally, we’re due a spot of good luck.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She took another step back, was entirely in the hallway now. “Well, I’ll let you guys get, um, back to it.”

“Ephie,” Noltan said. “Are you…are you all right? I know today must have been—”

“I’m totally fine. Fine, fine,” she answered swiftly. The sliding door closed even more swiftly, and then she was alone again. 

Since she couldn’t go to her room and couldn’t very well hang out in the bathroom like a freak, she went to the only place left besides the engine room—which she was sure would be occupied similarly to the piloting station. The mess smelled like candy cigarettes. The bottle of alien happy liquor still sat on the table where she’d left it. She picked it up and swigged it directly from the bottle. It tasted like nothing, but she wished it had some sort of kick to it, just to make it easier to gauge how much she’d had. 

It didn’t make her happy though. All it did was plaster a fake smile across her face, one she wore even an hour later, after she’d nodded off with her head against the wall.

When Yrhen walked in, she woke at once, hurting her neck in her haste to sit up. Warmth spread through the muscle and she clasped a hand to the point of pain with an annoyed grunt. But still there was a slight smile on her face. 

Yrhen looked confused by this at first, until he saw the bottle beside her. “That stuff won’t get you drunk,” he said. “It’ll just make you happy.” He sat down, picking up the bottle and eyeing the label. “Oh. This is expired.” He did the single eyebrow arch before tossing the whole bottle into the trash bin across the mess, the perfect shot. 

His eyes were tired, but bluer than ever. She wondered what he’d talked about with Sidero for so long, why he looked the way he did. But she couldn’t ask, wouldn’t ever ask. 

“I don’t mean to do this, but it’s sort of hard to help,” he said, joining her at the table, sitting in an actual chair while she remained atop it. “I can feel you, the way you’re…smoldering.”

“I’m not smoldering,” she smoldered. 

His laugh was as tired as his eyes, and weak. He ran fingers through his hair, bangs flopping all over the place, out of control. “Sidero had a lot to say to me,” he continued, aiming for nonchalance with his words, but she could see how on edge he was through the fatigue. “About you. And us.”

“Us, like you and him?” 

“You and me,” he corrected. He maintained their eye contact for a long moment, then looked away, hiding behind a hand pressed against his forehead. “He was mostly spouting apologies, regrets. But he also said he didn’t want to…you know…”

“You and me?” she repeated. “You and me doesn’t exist.”

“That’s what I told him.”

She swallowed hard, unsettled but not surprised by the way her chest ached. “I don’t know why you think I care about your personal shit with him. If you’re worried I want him back or something, you’re an idiot. He’s all yours.”

“That’s not...” He sighed. “He kept telling me he loves me.”

“Gross.”

“I know. I don’t remember him being so sentimental. It’s kind of a turnoff.”

She nodded.

“I just think I’ve grown too much to go backwards like that,” he continued. He leaned back in his chair, getting his hands out of his hair in order to twiddle his thumbs on the tabletop. It was distracting; he had really nice thumbs. “I feel bad about what happened, if it’s true what he said about the amnesia, but…it’s been ten years. I haven’t exactly spent those years pining for him. Maybe a little, but.” Another sigh. “I mean, how are you?”

“How am I?”

“How are you handling this?” 

“I’m not yammering incessantly about it, for one,” she replied. 

“Yeah, but you’re not going to, I don’t know, kill him in his sleep or anything, are you?”

Interesting. She looked up at him. “Do you want me to?”

“No,” he was quick to insist. 

“Okay…”

“…”

“I’m not gonna freak out and decide I want him dead before we reach Castinof, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said. “I’m seeing this job through to the end, and Sydney—sorry, Sidero—is a part of that now, whether I like it or not.”

“I don’t like it, in case you were wondering,” he said.

“I wasn’t.”

“But in case you were,” he kept on, always keeping on. “I don’t like that my Sidero is your Sidero, and I don’t like what your Sidero did. To you.”

“Apparently, he didn’t do anything to me. I did it all myself. Free-thinking agent and all that.”

He wasn’t smiling. 

“Oh, did you want to think I’m like this for a reason? Turns out, I’m just a bloodthirsty bitch who finished off her own dad, and I always have been. You can stop staring at me, because you’re not gonna find anything new.” She knew it, because she’d stared at herself long enough, trying the same exact thing. 

He stopped staring, but he didn’t get up to leave; he didn’t move a muscle. “I sent him back to his old room,” he said. “So.”

She wished she could lift a single eyebrow like him; it would be so perfect right now. “So?”

“So it’ll just be me. In my room. If you.” He rolled his shoulders and gave his neck a stretch, and then suddenly, as if by magic—and maybe it was—the owner of the Blue Rock Gentleman’s Club was in front of her, all smirky and charisma-dripping. “If you need someplace more comfortable to sleep than the mess table…” He winked. 

She slid off the table, positioned herself in front of his chair, and matched his smile with a cruel one of her own. “You think I want to sleep with you?”

“Technically,” he said, “it’s kind of like we’ve already slept together, what with the mutual sex partner stuff.”

“Technically, you’re a dick.”

“Technically, so are you.”

And that? That was true enough to make her walk away, lock herself in the bathroom, and sleep on the floor.


	14. Chapter 14

Her back was aching when the knock came—followed by Lav’s insistence she get up and meet everyone in the piloting room—because she wasn’t young enough by half to get away with sleeping on a tile floor. She eased herself up slowly, her groans loud and self-pitying. She looked awful; nothing new there. Ran her hand under the sink and threaded her hair with damp fingers, attempting at least a modicum of readiness for the day. Because she was ready, damn it. Ready to march Prince What’s-his-face and Sydney-Sidero-Asshole off the ship and onto Castinof and rid herself of all life’s problems in one fell swoop. 

She rolled up the sleeves of her flannel, dabbed the spots on her chin with alien cosmetics, and walked out the door like she wasn’t anxious as hell. She missed her sharp edges, needed them back, would pretend they were still there as long as she needed to, as long as it took until they were really there. 

Noltan gave her a sheepish smile when she joined everyone in the half-circle around Hectory, who was twirled around in his chair, legs crossed over the knee, his fingers tapping on his thigh and his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. 

“We’re circling Castinof,” he announced. “There are a few merc ships behind us in the queue to enter the atmosphere, but they’re not attacking.”

Yrhen was standing as far from Ephraim as he could, on the other side of Sidero, his hip pressed against the co-pilot dashboard. He looked like he’d slept on the floor, too, even though he’d definitely slept in a bed, the bastard. “Why are they leaving us alone?”

“I’m guessing it’s because they’ve been hailed by Castinof to do so. I sent a message upon arrival that we were approaching. I thought it best not to surprise anyone, lest you be shot on sight.” Hectory’s shoulders were drawn high in a poor mimic of a carefree shrug. She glanced around the room and found everyone nearly as tense, including herself. It was a small comfort to not be alone in her anxiety. 

Sidero might have been the most uneasy of all, his eyes constantly darting to Yrhen’s face, and then to the monitor, which showed the white dot of their ship and two red dots positioned behind it. “It’s good you sent a message. They might have destroyed the entire ship if they’d seen it without warning.” 

Harry was perched on Lav’s shoulder, the two of them more withdrawn than Ephraim could ever remember them being. When she caught Lav’s eye, she was met with a tight smile, followed by the slow drag of a candy cigarette. If she survived this bullshit and got back to Earth, she was going to start smoking again. She was not going to be caught in outer space again with nothing but candy. 

“What’s the next step?” she asked. It was the first thing she’d said all morning, and her voice sounded raspy and tired. “Do we just go down there?”

“I will take us down, with permission from the royal family—that being Yrhen’s parents—and land us in the docking bay, where I imagine we will be swiftly greeted by the authorities and taken to the court. Yrhen will then have a chance to speak the truth, and that is when Sidero will make his confession, this time in front of a formal audience so the king and queen cannot silence him with another book deal.” Hectory’s gaze was sharp as it fell on Sidero. 

“I’m ready,” he assured with a confident nod. His fingers brushed against Yrhen’s wrist, which Yrhen then pulled abruptly away. “I won’t let you down. They will hear my confession, even if I am arrested as a result.”

“How noble,” Lav muttered. Harry swatted a leaf at her face. 

“I know I’m not anyone’s favorite on this ship,” Sidero said, bowing his head at Lav, and then glancing sideways at Ephraim. “But I’m in this, like I said.” His last look was for Yrhen, made with wide, soulful eyes. “I won’t let you down again. Not ever.”

“Can we do this before I throw up?” Ephraim asked, only half joking. “You ready, Prince?”

He flinched at her use of his title, and she realized she’d not called him Prince in a long time. She didn’t feel comfortable enough to be so familiar anymore. He felt like Prince again, not Yrhen. And she didn’t feel like anyone or anything. 

“I’m ready,” he answered. “I guess.”

“Then let’s get on with it.” Hectory swiveled around in his chair, and Noltan scooted past Yrhen and slid into the co-pilot seat. “I’m taking us down. I suggest any final preparations be made immediately, because five minutes from now, this ship will be swarming with Castinof guards.”

Ephraim didn’t like the sound of that, retreated into the hallway so the aliens on the ship wouldn’t detect her anxiety. She was about to be surrounded by aliens who would all be able to mess with her emotions, throwing their pheromones all over the place, and she didn’t know how to deal with that. She knew even less how to deal with Yrhen when he approached her in the hallway and dragged her into the mess. 

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, yanking back her arm. 

“We don’t have time for this,” he rushed, equally irritated, although he did retract his hand and didn’t try to touch her again. “I need you to try and stay close to me on Castinof. As close as you can.”

“How about I don’t do that?”

“I know you’re worried about your autonomy,” he said. “Especially after what happened on Bittlesby with the Yuji.”

“Shut up,” she said, smacking a hand over her face as it went bright red. 

“My people can’t affect you to that extreme,” he said, “but manipulation comes naturally to us. If you stay close to me, I can offer protection from the others.”

She dropped her hand and stared up at him. “Like a pheromone barrier?”

“Kind of. I can provide somewhat of a…reflector, I think. You’ll be safer if you’re next to me. Safer still if we’re touching.”

The ship was rattling, the floor vibrating beneath her feet. Fevek was speaking over the intercom in the hall; they’d be landing soon. 

Yrhen held out his hand to her. 

“You want to hold my hand?” she asked. 

“I want to help. Because you’ve done so much to help me.”

Her guts twisted. He looked so earnest. Why did he have to look like that, and talk like that, and be the way he was? 

The others were herding into the hall, gathering by the sliding doors that, in a few short minutes, would be sliding open and letting a whole new world inside, a whole new chapter to this disastrous adventure. Yrhen’s hand wasn’t steady. It shook, even though his expression was fixed with determination. He could fake a look, but he couldn’t fake the tremor in his hand. That was what made her reach for it, take it, accept it. 

His warm fingers slipped between hers, their palms clasping together. Hers was sweaty, but it was okay, because so was his. Hands together, he nodded, and they went back into the hallway, both facing the doors, standing side by side like that was all it was, like they weren’t squeezing the life out of each other. Like she wasn’t more charged by the touch of his hand than she’d ever been by Sidero’s touch anywhere. The sternness on his face lightened considerably when she turned her head subtly to check. He knew what she was feeling. He glanced at her briefly, smirking. 

Her heart jumped, probably looking for a way out of her chest. Ephraim couldn’t blame it; she was looking for a way out, too. But all she did was squeeze Yrhen’s hand tighter. 

The others weren’t too preoccupied to notice, but no one said anything. They all stared at the door, waiting. 

She couldn’t tell when they docked, didn’t know it until the doors opened. A rush of cool air hit her face, followed by an iciness in her blood as three uniformed men came through the door carrying weapons that looked a lot like scythes, except longer and scarier and sharper. They stopped in front of Sidero, because he had maneuvered himself in front. He was smiling, a familiar charm. It was how she imagined the picture in the back of his book looked. 

“Sidero Wulbrox,” greeted one of the guards, offering a friendly nod. “Haven’t seen you here in a few weeks. How’s it going, man?”

“Good, good.” Sidero slapped the guard on the back and laughed. “How are the kids?”

“Oh, you know. They’re teenagers. Boys will be boys.”

“Eww,” Ephraim couldn’t help but saying, which brought all the attention to herself and the royal runaway whose hand she was holding. 

Beside her, Yrhen cleared his throat and all three guards’ eyes went round. 

“Prince Yrhen,” one of them said, bowing until another one punched him in the shoulder. 

“He’s a murderer,” the guard grunted. “We don’t have to bow to him anymore.”

“Actually, that is a matter I wish to discuss with the king and queen, if I may,” Sidero interrupted, sidling between the guards and draping his arms over their shoulders like they’d all been in the same frat. For all Ephraim knew, they had been. Castinofs, in her experience so far, were total bros. 

Hectory chose that moment to return from the piloting station, with Noltan treading behind him. “The king and queen are expecting us,” he announced, unperturbed by the guards, even if, behind him, Noltan was noticeably unnerved. 

“We know,” said one of the guards, a bit too hoity for a bro, but definitely douchey enough. “They’ve been at the dock barracks for an hour, waiting for this ship to land. But no one told us who would be on it. How’s it going, Synthetic?”

“Spare me,” Hectory sighed. “We’ve followed the appropriate protocol; are you going to do the same?”

The guards looked to Sidero, like he was the deciding factor. 

Sidero nodded. Took a step forward, the guards following faithfully. “You might want to ask the guards waiting outside to come in,” he said. “There’s almost certainly about to be a struggle.”

Ephraim didn’t understand at first; no one seemed to, or else something would have been done sooner, quicker. 

But like last time Sidero had pulled the rug from under her feet, she merely stood there, hand wrapped up in Yrhen’s, thinking over Sidero’s words and not getting it. 

One of the guards whistled, and more appeared. They marched onto the ship, crowding the space, forcing Ephraim to stand closer to Yrhen, their shoulders pushing together. Lav cursed and pushed one of them back. 

A bad feeling was growing in Ephraim. “We’re here to clear Yrhen’s name,” she announced, in case that wasn’t obvious. She didn’t think it was, as Sidero had not yet mentioned their purpose of arrival. “We have testimony that Prince Yrhen didn’t kill Princess…um…”

“Willamede,” Yrhen finished. 

“Right. Princess Willamede. He didn’t kill her, and Sidero knows it, and he’s going to tell the court exactly that, so if you’ll back off, we can get off this ship and get that done.”

Sidero was nodding along, smiling. She waited for him to verify her claim. Waited and waited. But this is what she got: “Mind the Synthetics. If they’re unscathed, they can be re-used.” And then he turned for the door, the guards making a path for him. 

“Sid?” Yrhen called. The confusion in his voice broke her heart. Once upon a time, she’d sounded like that. 

Sidero looked over his shoulder, bright and gleaming. “Yes, my love?”

“What are you doing?” asked Yrhen. 

“Why, I’m having you arrested. I thought that was obvious.”

Ephraim dropped Yrhen’s hand, immediately felt a wave of calm crashing over her, and then grasped it again. “Don’t let go,” she whispered.

“I won’t.”

She leapt, kicking the closest guard high on his chest. Yrhen went with her, his left arm flying out, punching a different guard. With their hands connected, they spun around the crowded space, sharp elbows and punishing penny loafers and snarling mouths. 

She couldn’t see Lav, but she could see the guards as they moved around her and grabbed Hectory, grabbed Noltan. 

“Get off him!” she screamed, going for the guard’s throat who had Noltan squirming in his arms. 

A scythe came down at the same time an arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her back. She struggled against Yrhen’s chest, gasping at the shining blade that had almost hit her.

“We can’t take all of them,” he rasped against her ear, his grip so tight, she could only thrash helplessly, kicking her legs out, trying to reach the guard’s kneecaps that was dragging Noltan past her. 

“Noltan!” she screamed. “Don’t touch him! I’ll kill you!”

The guard with the scythe had it pointed toward her. And he wasn’t the only one. They were surrounded, completely surrounded by a dozen guards and a dozen scythes. Yrhen was breathing hard, his arms wrapped around her. She stopped trying to fight when Noltan disappeared from view, led out through the door, Hectory, too. Lav and Harry were against the wall, surrounded but untouched. No weapons were pointed at them. Sidero watched from the door, still talking. She could barely hear him over the deafening thrum of her own wild heartbeat. 

“Sydney, you bastard!” she bellowed. 

“Don’t,” Yrhen whispered against her cheek. “It’s too late.”

“It’s not too late,” she grated. “It’s not too late. Sydney, I’m going to kill you. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, baby, I hear you. And when I bring you in front of the court in a few hours and show off my extraordinary feat of catching the most wanted criminal in the universe, all of Castinof can have the pleasure of hearing you. You always were a good screamer. I really did miss that passion.”

“Go to hell!” 

“Sure. Right after you go to your cell.” He snapped his fingers. “Guards, do something about these two, please. And don’t be too gentle. I have it on good authority they both like it a little rough.”

When they reached for her, Yrhen clung tight. His hands left her body only to reach around the neck of a guard. But that was the last thing she saw before someone else grabbed her. “No,” she whispered, before slumping into the arms of the guard, the calming influence making her instantly hazy. She didn’t see Yrhen again after that, or anything else, but she did hear him once before she lost consciousness. 

“Ephraim,” he said.


	15. Chapter 15

“Ephraim,” he said. 

It was the first thing she heard before opening her eyes. Her head throbbed, but she managed to slide them open a crack, was too worried not to try. 

He was there, hovering over her. He was bleeding from somewhere. A drop of it landed on her cheek. 

“Sorry, ugh, sorry.” His thumb wiped it away, and he stopped hovering directly over her, and hovered at her side instead. “I didn’t know if you were going to wake up. You were out like a light. I shouldn’t have let go of you. Not even for a second.”

It was then she realized she was lying on her back and the room she was in was very dark. And very cold. 

“I’ve been here before,” he continued. “We’re in the cells of a royal facility, where they stick the bad guys before a sentencing. I’ve been here before, but…on the other side of the bars.”

“Poor little rich boy,” she managed to rasp. She tried to sit up, but it was trouble. Her head spun. If his hands hadn’t slipped behind her back to help her lean against the wall, she would have fallen right back down. “I don’t want to sound racist, or whatever, but your race sucks.” 

“I think that’s speciesism,” Yrhen said. “Speciesist?”

“I don’t care.” Things were much more tolerable if her eyes remained closed, so she shut them. “I hate Castinofs. I hate Sidero. I hate your parents.”

“Me too. We’re on the same page.” He got quiet. Then: “Do you hate me?”

She groaned. “Duh. You’re the worst of the lot. You’re on top of the list.”

“That’s a little unfair, but okay.”

She felt him settle beside her. She didn’t complain when their arms touched. He was warmth in the cold, and on top of that, she didn’t hate him. At all. And she thought he must know it, because a second later, his hand reached for hers. She held her breath as their fingers tangled. 

“Isn’t this a precious sight? Two of my former lovers getting cozy before the end of their lives.”

She opened her eyes again. The cell was small and dark, and at the bars stood Sidero. There were no guards with him; he’d come alone. 

Beside her, Yrhen’s breath caught in his throat, but he didn’t speak. Neither did she. Not yet. 

Sidero shifted on his feet, watching them. It was clear he wanted an audience, wanted questions, wanted to gloat with his answers. “I came to tell you that, unfortunately, you won’t be able to thank your Synthetic before you’re killed. I figured you’d want to, since he’s the reason you’re here.”

Ephraim’s fingers twitched against Yrhen’s. The urge to speak was too strong. “Hectory?” she asked. Had he set this up somehow? It seemed so unlikely, as Yrhen had trusted him, and he’d known where his friend was for ten years without telling. 

“The one called Noltan, as a matter of fact,” replied Sidero, drumming his fingers against the bars. “You see, he’s only been on Earth a short while. I brought him to Blossom after a fresh memory wipe and set him up someplace nice. Left him programmed with instructions to find you, Ephraim, to get you on the hunt for Yrhen. After a decade of looking, I figured out I’d been neglecting my biggest asset.”

“What the hell are you blathering about?” she asked, trying to remain collected even though she wanted nothing more than to burst into tears—or flames. 

“He won’t remember any of it,” Sidero continued, enthralled by his own voice. “He didn’t realize what he was doing, or why. It was entirely subconscious. A highly intricate program, made by me, for the sole purpose of finding Yrhen and bringing him to me.”

Her back was straight against the cell wall, her muscles taut. “Noltan,” she whispered, remembering how they’d met, how he’d come to her, insisted on working for her. How he couldn’t recall his past. “He’s your Synthetic?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call him mine, exactly. He’s an old model, but I did purchase him, yes, and I did perform the memory wipe myself, as well as install his newest program. It was quite brilliant, you see, because as soon as you came in contact with Yrhen, a little chip in Noltan’s metal brain sent a message to yours truly, as well as to every merc ship in the tri-planet area. After that, I knew it would only be a matter of time until you came to me.”

“How could you possibly know what we’d do?” 

“Because I know you,” Sidero bragged. “Both of you. Intimately. I knew you’d need to find the prince who’d mucked up Blossom. And I knew if the mercs had him cornered, Yrhen would figure out a way to get back in the sky. It’s perhaps a bit worrisome, how predictable you are. Although, to be fair, I didn’t predict the handholding. And just some advice there, I wouldn’t recommend pursuing that.” He waved his hand between them. “You’re both a pain in the ass to date.”

“Everything you’ve said to me since yesterday has been a lie,” Yrhen said. If Ephraim hadn’t been holding his hand, she would have been tempted to take it now. “You lied about what you did to Ephraim, too, didn’t you?”

Sidero huffed. “I’m getting pretty tired of caring about poor, helpless Ephraim, and honestly, I’m not sure why you care so much about what I did. We’re Castinofs, Yrhen. She’s human. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice how easy she is to manipulate. I did the natural thing. We’re not human. I did what I had to do to survive.”

Yrhen’s grip on her hand grew stronger, and Ephraim knew—she just knew—that Sidero was trying right now to influence her, but couldn’t do it, because she was being protected. It didn’t take long for Sidero to figure it out, either. He was obnoxiously observant. 

“But maybe she’s not as easy to manipulate as you are, darling,” he said. “A few sweet words and you accepted me back into your heart.”

“That’s a gross exaggeration,” Yrhen replied drily. 

“Whatever. The point is, you let me on your ship.” His head cocked to the side, making his shoulder-length hair shine in the scant light the cells had to offer. “You should have killed me on the spot. Ephraim, I know you know how to kill.”

She bolted to her feet and hit the cell bars so hard they rattled. Sidero didn’t budge. He remained right there, his face close to hers between the bars. She couldn’t speak through her anger, but it was okay, because Yrhen spoke for her. Yrhen, who had also risen to his feet and was standing behind her, his hand touching her hip—as a shield, as a comfort. 

“You didn’t have amnesia, you lying son of a bitch. You abandoned me during the crash and, what? Found a child to prey on? Forced her to kill off her only relation, free-loaded in her house for a year until you could hitch a ride off Earth? What’s wrong with you? She was a literal child, Sid!”

“Ephraim would have died that night if I hadn’t intervened. And the father was already as good as dead by the time I got there. All I did was teach a child life’s most important lesson.” He gazed down at her, locking eyes. “Know when someone isn’t worth saving.”

She closed her eyes and saw her dad, saw her hands covered in blood, saw Sydney kneeling beside her, kissing her temple, promising he could help. Yrhen’s hand tightened around her hip and her eyes flew open. She spit in Sidero’s face.

He flung himself back from the bars, wiping at his eyes in disgust. “Just like I thought,” he laughed. “Not worth saving.”

“What are you gonna do to Noltan? What have you done with Lav?” she asked, because she might be as good as dead, and Yrhen might be, too, but Noltan and Lav had done nothing but work for Camaro Exterminations, and she couldn’t afford their deaths on her conscious. 

“While you’re being executed and I’m collecting the bounty—which is, by the way, astronomically huge, your Synthetic friend will be having his memory wiped, along with your pilot. He’s been a very bad Synthetic these past ten years. He might even be dismantled. As for the Noturok, she was allowed to leave Castinof; she made it clear she was an unwilling participant in the entire affair. She’s long gone by now. It seems she knew the lot of you were beyond saving.”

“Leave Ephraim out of this,” Yrhen said. “It’s me wanted for murder, not her. She’s done nothing wrong.”

“She’s aided and abetted a murderer,” Sidero corrected. “And I think you know that’s a capital offense.” 

“Try and kill me,” she said. “See what happens.”

“I know better than to attempt it myself, but thanks for the warning. No, I will be a safe distance away, watching the proceedings. Which should be taking place in, oh, a half hour or so? I just wanted to come down and say a quick hello before it was too late.” He waved his fingers. “Hello.”

Ephraim pushed back from the bars, pressing into Yrhen’s chest. He had both hands on her hips now, anchoring himself as much as he was anchoring her. 

“I wasn’t lying when I said it was good to see you,” Sidero continued, walking backwards towards the door and watching them intensely. “I’m not a bad person, truly. I just recognize a lost cause when I see it.” He pointed at them and smiled sadly. “Goodbye to you both. I promise to be kind in your descriptions, for my next book.” He touched a hand to his heart, and then he left the room. 

Ephraim moved away from Yrhen to the opposite side of the cell, which wasn’t nearly far enough. Maybe a few yards. She pressed her forehead to the cold wall and closed her eyes. It had all been true, then, what she’d first believed when she saw Sidero on Bittlesby. She didn’t know if that made anything better, but at least she didn’t have to blame herself anymore. Sometimes, that was important, having someone else to blame. 

“I guess I should have seen this coming,” Yrhen said. His voice was low, and when she turned around, he’d slid down the opposite wall to the floor. 

“You wanted to believe someone you loved couldn’t possibly be that terrible a person,” she said. “Because then you’d have to wonder, what’s wrong with me, that I didn’t see it before?”

“Is that what you thought?” he asked.

“It’s what I’ve wondered every day for ten years.”

“That’s a long time. I’ve been doing that, too.”

She smiled. It hurt her face, made her want to cry. “We have a lot more in common than cows.”

He smiled, too. “Just so you know, I’m not, like, super into cows or anything. I’m not sure if you realize that.”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed about it,” she countered. “They’re cute.”

He laughed, but the pleasure didn’t stay long on his face. Soon his head was in his hands and his voice was pleading. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Every artist needs a moos.” 

He looked up at her, floppy bangs flopping over his eyes. “I’m actually trying to angle away from cows for a second, if you’ll bear with me.”

“Oh. Okay.” She sat down, cross-legged, against the opposite wall. “Seriously. Don’t apologize.”

“You can’t stop me,” he said. 

“I can try.”

“Everything bad that’s happened to you…it feels like it’s my fault. Like I’m the root of all evil in your life. I knew there were mercs searching for me in Blossom, but I never let myself think, who is this affecting? If they aren’t finding me, who are they finding? Who are they hurting?”

She held up a hand. “Stop it. You’re an idiot.”

“That’s what I’m trying to apologize for.”

“And I’m telling you don’t apologize. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. You’re an idiot, yeah, but so am I. We’re even, okay? We’ve both been burned, twice, and now we’re going to die, and it’s not fair, but it’s where we’ve ended up. We’re exactly alike. And I don’t like apologies.” 

“I don’t either,” Yrhen admitted. 

“So shut up.”

“Can I tell you something?” he asked. “Since we’re going to die?”

She shrugged. 

“Every time you tell me to shut up, I think of kissing you.”

She looked at him—really looked at him—and he was looking at her—really looking. For so long, she’d been invisible, and now she had spotlights on her. It made her stomach swoop and flutter. She felt a little sick, felt a little happy, felt a little relieved. And honestly? The tortured look really did work for Yrhen, and so she also felt a little turned on. 

“Shut up,” she said again. 

He scooted forward on his butt—scoot scoot across the floor. Scoot scoot until his boots were touching her penny loafers. 

“Your moos joke was funny,” he whispered. “Sorry I didn’t laugh.”

She bit her lip. “Shut up.”

His eyebrow arched high. Just the one. Scoot scoot. “I lied just now,” he said. He was closer than shoe to shoe. 

“About my joke?” 

“No. I think of kissing you, no matter what you say.”

“Wow. You’re coming off a little desperate.”

Scoot. He was so close she could see his throat bob when he swallowed. “That’s a mean way of putting it.”

“I’m mean,” she explained.

“I don’t think so.” There was nowhere left to scoot. “I think you’re secretly nice.”

“I think you’re full of it. Not so secretly.”

“If I kiss you, will you punch me?” he asked. 

“I might,” she answered honestly. 

He paused. “Hmm.”

“What, are you scared?”

“A little.” He leaned in, his hand grazing her knee. 

She decided she probably wouldn’t punch him for kissing her, let her eyes close, let her lips part. She felt the heat of him, his breath on her skin, the tip of his nose as he nuzzled her cheek. She definitely wouldn’t punch him for kissing her. “Yrhen,” she said softly. Not Prince. Yrhen. She had no trouble saying it anymore, or thinking it. “We don’t have all day. We’re literally about to die.”

“Not literally,” he said, fully in her space, breathing her in, his lips lingering over hers but not touching, not yet. “I have a few minutes to enjoy being close to you without getting decked.”

She grabbed hold of his stupid hair, intent on doing the kissing herself, if he was going to be so slow about it, but—naturally—that’s when the door slammed open and the guards came stomping through. 

“Damn it!” she cursed. She yanked Yrhen’s head forward, but not for kissing. She whispered into his ear instead. It was probably the sexiest sweet-nothing she’d ever say. “You wanna get out of here?”

He pulled back and met her gaze, his eyes dazed. “Yeah,” he breathed. 

They stood. Her knees didn’t buckle from the near-ecstasy of almost-kissing Yrhen, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if they had. And they didn’t buckle when the guards—four of them—came up to the bars of the cell with their shiny scythes and a set of keys, because she wasn’t afraid of dying. But she’d already decided, when Yrhen’s hand had grazed her knee and his lips had grazed her cheek, that she wasn’t dying today, and neither was he. She might have been a prisoner on another planet, sentenced to death, put there by the ex-boyfriend who’d haunted every aspect of her life for a decade, but she was also an exterminator, and her specialty was douchebag aliens that moved in on her turf. And as far as she was concerned, in this very moment, and maybe from the very first moment, Yrhen was her turf. 

She rolled up the sleeves of her flannel. “Touch me,” she told him, her eyes on the guards.

“Now who’s desperate?” he muttered, but he shifted closer anyway, putting his hand on her back and shielding her from whatever pheromones the guards might be keen on putting out. 

The guard with the keys had the good sense to look wary as he opened the cell. But he wasn’t paying much mind to Ephraim; it was Yrhen he and the others were watching. They believed he’d murdered his princess fiancé; he was infamous, not only to his own people on Castinof, but throughout the universe. Princess Killer. What a disaster. It brought an inappropriate smile to her face. Hectory had told her Yrhen was one of the least malicious people he’d ever met, but she hoped that wasn’t completely true, because she was ready to do some violence. Her palms itched with it. She folded them into fists. 

“Prince Yrhen,” said the first guard, putting his keys back on the hook of his belt and tightening his grip on his scythe. “You are charged with murder, kidnapping, and fleeing the law. We are here to escort you to the Court, where the King and Queen will decide your punishment. Are you going to be compliant?”

Yrhen coughed. “Sure. You bet.”

The guard then turned to her. “Ephraim Camaro,” he said. “You are charged with the aiding and abetting of a fugitive, as well as the assault of hundreds of mercenaries on Earth. We are here to escort you to the Court, where the King and Queen will decide your punishment. Are you going to be compliant?”

“Those mercenaries attacked me first,” she said. “Well, sometimes they did. My attacks were mostly self-defense.”

“That is a matter for the King and Queen,” said the guard. “Are you going to be compliant or are we going to have to restrain you?”

She rolled her eyes. She liked it better when dwellers didn’t talk. “I’ll be compliant.” 

The guards nodded, looking pleased that their jobs would be easier than anticipated. “Then step out of the cell and come with us.”

Her smile was impossible to hide, and it felt so good; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d smiled so freely, or so frequently. “Okay, Yrhen,” she said, following the guard out of the cell, still feeling his hand ghosting over her back. “Let’s go quietly.”

“I can be quiet,” he said. 

They stood outside the cell and a guard took Ephraim’s elbow, with the intent of leading her to her death. Yeah fucking right. 

Thanks to Sidero and Yrhen, she knew enough about Castinof anatomy to know it was basically the same as a human male’s, only with the occasional spikiness. So she slammed her heel as hard as she could on the guard’s toe, and then, while he was busy gasping in surprise and pain, she brought her knee up, even harder, into his groin. 

He howled, spikes shooting out of his knuckles and up his spine. Good. He finally saw her as a threat. She’d started to feel a bit insulted. 

Behind her, his back pressed to hers, fighting to keep contact with her body, Yrhen was struggling with a guard, fighting for his scythe. But even with one with freshly crushed balls and one with his hands full of royal hotness—she could admit it, finally—there were still two guards who were very much armed, and their spikes had come out, too. She didn’t want to know what it felt like to be punched with those knuckles, so she ducked when a fist came flying at her face. 

The crouch made her butt stick out, which knocked Yrhen forward a bit, pushing him into his guard and making them both stumble. It also broke their contact, but all Ephraim could feel from the guards was high anxiety and bloodlust. Two of her most relatable emotions. If these guys weren’t trying to kill her, she’d be inclined to buy them all a round. 

A scythe sliced through the air, narrowly missing her shoulder, and in the midst of being pissed, she was also jealous; she needed to get one of those for herself—though it probably wouldn’t fit in her weapons chest. 

Yrhen won his fight for the scythe, and once procuring it for himself, tossed it to Ephraim. Though she’d seen him pack an impressive punch in the bar fight, and in the Camaro Exterminations office, it seemed he had little experience—or desire—to hack at his own species, even if they totally sucked. But she was pleased to receive the scythe; it felt good in her hands, and unlike Yrhen, she had no qualms about swinging its blade at the throat of the guard coming for her next. 

There was a splatter of blood, but it was worth it when he went down in a bloody heap. She ignored the warm droplets on her face and attacked the guard who’d somehow succeeded in getting Yrhen in a headlock, flipping the scythe in her hand and jabbing him in the forehead with the blunt side, then shoving the blade backwards into the last standing guard, who’d been creeping up behind her. 

Yrhen gasped, rubbing at his newly freed throat. He had less blood on him than Ephraim probably did, but he was sweating and panting, looking at the fallen guards with wide eyes. “Well,” he said, “they’re definitely going to kill us now, if they weren’t before.”

“The hell they are,” she spat. “I’m living. And so are you. You said you’ve been here before. Do you know your way around?”

“Yeah,” he answered, bending to one knee to rustle around for the set of keys. He lifted them in the air and gave them a triumphant jangle. “There’s a Synthetic lab in this holding facility, for rogues and old models. That’s where they’d be doing the memory wipe, if they haven’t already done it.”

“Jesus.” She wiped at her forehead, her flannel sleeve coming away with a red smear. “Noltan’s just a kid.”

She expected Yrhen to maybe make a smart comment about robots not being kids, etc. But he only nodded and led the way towards the exit. “And Hectory.” His eyes may have been watering, or maybe Ephraim’s were. “He’s my best friend. I don’t want to lose him.”

For some reason, that made her think of Lav. She should have felt angry with her for abandoning them, but she could only feel thankful that she, at least, would survive all this. “We have to get to them.”

Yrhen pressed his ear to the door. “I don’t hear anyone on the other side.”

A guard groaned at her feet and she kicked him. “Shut up,” she snapped. 

Yrhen caught her eye and smirked. 

“So when you said you knew your way around this place, what you really meant to say was, no, Ephraim, I’m an idiot and don’t know anything about anything.”

They’d been sneaking down corridors—some empty, some now filled with unconscious and/or dead guards—for fifteen minutes, Yrhen insisting the stairs to the second level were “right around the corner.” They’d just rounded their latest corner, and there were still no stairs, and she was losing her patience. She grabbed the collar of Yrhen’s shirt and slammed him against the wall, which, frustratingly, only earned her a smile of approval. 

“It’s up ahead,” he insisted. “I swear.”

“If they’ve already wiped Noltan,” she began, embarrassed by the sound of her voice breaking. She let him go and glanced away, only to feel his hands fall to her shoulders, steering her further down the hall, this time in the right direction. Hopefully. 

“We’ll get there in time,” he promised, which was risky, since there was no way he could know that. For all he knew, they’d melted Noltan and Hectory down for parts already. “There’s no future where they’re gone. All right?”

It was a somber thing to say, and exactly what she’d been thinking. They reached the end of the hall, paused, and then poked their heads around the corner. The stairs were there, and so was a guard, but he was on his own, and he appeared to have—she squinted—a Walkman in his hand. He had earphones on his head, and she could hear the music, which meant he couldn’t hear her. 

“Castinof is like Earth, except worse,” she whispered. “Which should be impossible, but,” she gestured to the guard, “is he listening to ‘Baby Got Back’ while he’s on duty?”

“Hey,” Yrhen whispered back. “I like ‘Baby Got Back’.”

“Of course you do.” Secretly, so did she, but she’d never admit it. “You want a Walkman?”

“Pfft. Yeah.”

“Give me a second.”

In the end, it took about ten seconds to disarm the guard of his Walkman and scythe, and leave him knocked out on the floor. She tossed Yrhen the Walkman, which he stuck in his pants, and then they hurried up the stairs. Every step rattled her nerves, but she gritted her teeth and kept going. There was no future where she didn’t. 

The second floor—the Synthetic Detention Level, as the plaque at the top of the stairs was kind enough to point out—was far lighter in security, and Yrhen really did seem to know his way around, taking her hand and pulling her quickly down white hallways with bare walls and cement floors. It was a chilling, empty place, and she preferred the darkness of the cells; at least they’d been…not cozier, but…maybe cozier, with Yrhen in there with her. 

There was a door with too many blinking lights at the end of a hallway, and she had to glance away from it while Yrhen worked to get it open. It took the manipulation of some key-punching, which sounded complicated to her but was easy for Yrhen. She didn’t ask, he didn’t explain, and in a minute, he had the door open. 

If she was the sort of person who cried under great duress, she would have done so upon entering the room where Noltan and Hectory were strapped down to metal tables. But duress fed her anger, and anger fueled her adrenaline, and the blue-coated workers hovering over the two Synthetics received the full effect of it. She shook off Yrhen’s hand and charged the alien whose gloved hand held a tool of some kind, reminiscent of a tiny blowtorch. She kicked it from his hand, sent it sailing across the room, then sent the alien sailing after it. Yrhen had the second worker pressed into the wall, banging his head against it until his eyes rolled back, and when released, he slipped to the floor. 

She ran back to the metal tables, where Noltan was strapped down. His eyes were open and huge. Tears ran down the side of his face. 

“Hey, kid,” she said, fingers working desperately at the straps. They were leather, not hard to unbuckle. The first one came free with ease, but Noltan wasn’t moving. She gave his face a light slap. Beside her, Yrhen was releasing Hectory. “Are you mind wiped? Do you know who you are?”

Noltan blinked at her. He had really pretty eyes. She felt an uncomfortable rush of protectiveness towards him. He wasn’t human, sure, but what the hell did that matter? She didn’t like humans, anyway. Humans sucked. “Do you know who I am?” she tried again. 

She freed him from the strap around his waist and helped him sit up.

He gave his neck a crack, rubbed his hand over his head, and looked at her. “I thought you’d be dead by now,” he croaked. 

Again, she could have cried—if she was the type, and she wasn’t. “Ditto,” she said, clasping his shoulder. “Sidero said you were both being wiped. I didn’t know if we’d get to you in time.”

“Sidero can suck it,” Hectory said. Yrhen had helped him sit up. His hair was in disarray and his eyes were red and a little swollen, but he was unharmed, by the looks of it. “He came in here to gloat a few minutes ago. Bragged that you two were as good as dead.”

“And that Lav left us behind,” Noltan said, voice small. 

Hectory jumped off the table, legs only a little wobbly, and pushed Ephraim out of the way so he could get between Noltan’s knees and hug him tight. “I don’t think she would have left you unless she had to,” he whispered. 

Noltan gave his head a nod, but the betrayal he felt was clearly written on his face. Ephraim wondered if her face looked similar. But they were still in danger, and there wasn’t time to feel anything but pissed off. 

“We need to get off this planet,” she said. 

As if to back up her declaration with an urgency that was already felt and didn’t really require further proof, a loud alarm started blaring and the lights flashed red. 

“Oh, Christ,” she muttered, helping Noltan off the table. Hectory seemed more solid, and wrapped his arm around his waist. When this was all over, if they survived, she’d be sure to make a brisk comment about how good they looked together…or something. Because maybe being a little nice wouldn’t kill her, like she used to think it would. Maybe it would be aliens that killed her instead, maybe within the next few minutes. 

“I know a way out that shouldn’t be too heavily guarded,” Hectory said, leading them to a second door in the back of the room—or horror laboratory, as Ephraim was beginning to think of it as. It slid open, revealing a dark, tunnel-ish hallway. “It leads to the Synthetic Waste Department,” he explained, leading the way. 

It was so dark, she couldn’t see well. That was her excuse for not shaking off Yrhen’s hand when it reached for hers. “Synthetic Waste Department?” she asked. “As in…”

“It’s where they dump broken models,” Hectory said. “It’s where pieces of us would have been dumped, if they’d decided to use us for spare parts.”

“Yikes,” she mumbled, wishing she had something more poignant to say. But Hectory nodded, like “yikes” was exactly right.

This hallway wasn’t as long as the others, and not nearly as sterile; she tripped over an unattached robot foot before reaching the door at the end of it. That’s when Hectory paused and they all strained their ears to listen. Ephraim heard nothing. 

“I don’t hear anything,” she whispered. 

“Me neither,” agreed Yrhen, after pressing his ear to the door. “I don’t think anyone’s on the other side.”

Noltan, who was so close to Hectory, he looked like he was trying to become one with him, right here, right now, was more hesitant. “The alarm, though,” he said. “They must know we’ve escaped. Which way would they come to find us?”

They listened again, for the stomping of feet and calls to arms, but nothing was audible but the muffled alarm, which hadn’t carried as loudly into the dark hall, but was still blaring away in the horror laboratory. 

“They’ll be retracing our steps from the cell,” Yrhen said. “We sort of left a visible trail. Of bodies and stuff.”

“He’s right,” Ephraim said. “I’d bet they’re coming the way we did.”

“I agree,” said Hectory. “I think this way is our best bet. And there should be a passage once we reach the Waste Room, which leads directly outside. With any luck, we’ll be able to reach the docking station, and, I don’t know, steal a getaway ship or something.”

“That’s a very confident plan,” scoffed Ephraim. “I feel really good about it.”

“It’s the only plan we have,” said Yrhen. 

“Ugh, I know. I just…” 

His hand tightened around hers. “What is it?”

She looked up at him in the dark and sighed. “This is just the worst job I’ve ever done. Are you still going to pay me?”

“Wow.” He was laughing.

“I think matters of payment can happen after we’ve made our impossible escape,” cautioned Hectory. “Noltan, I’ve got you.”

“Hey, I’ve got him, too,” Ephraim insisted. “And I had him first, so.”

“Well, I’ve got him, too,” said Yrhen. “Right, Noltan?”

Noltan was blushing, probably, even though it was too dim to see. What was clear was the way he ducked his head and squeezed at Hectory’s waist. “I feel thoroughly gotten.” He smiled wide. This kid was gonna be the death of her. Maybe literally. “Thanks, guys.”

“If that’s settled, I think we should go.” Yrhen’s hand was already pushing at the door. “The guards will be on us any minute. And as good as Ephraim is at killing people, I know for a fact she gets overwhelmed with large numbers.”

“Okay, jackass,” she huffed. “Just hide behind me. I’ll protect you.” She was kidding, but he grinned at her like she wasn’t, and it made her feel kind of nauseous, but also really good. Like, really good. 

Then the door opened, and the good feeling left.


	16. Chapter 16

The room awaiting them on the other side was full of guards. Guards who had been positioned there, from the looks of it, for a long time, waiting quietly for their arrival. Worst of all, Sidero stood amongst them. He had blood on his hands—this room was bright, sterile, like the others—and was shaking his head slowly, like he’d just caught some naughty children and was looking forward to delivering several spanks. She knew that look too well.

Yrhen cursed under his breath. He moved to stand in front of the others, but so did Ephraim, and they ended up bumping shoulders in a small struggle for Ultimate Protector. It ended when she elbowed his side and won the upper hand, gliding out in front of him to square off with Sidero, face to face. As soon as she moved, the guards circled them. And Yrhen was right; as much as she liked it, as good as she was, she couldn’t take this many armed guards, especially when there was hardly room to throw an elbow. 

The outlook was grim. But it always had been. 

“I had a feeling you’d try to pull something like this off,” said Sidero. He sounded sad about it, hardly the smug bastard she’d been expecting to speak. “I applaud your passion, as always, Ephraim. It will be a sad hour, the hour that fire of yours gets snuffed out, which, coincidentally, is going to be this hour.” 

She took a step forward, a small shuffle, and he moved back, most likely afraid he would receive more spit to the face. In truth, she was tempted, but this moment was about more than that. Besides, spitting was gross. “I’m not afraid of you anymore, Sydney,” she said. “I used to be, when I was nothing more than a kid trapped under your control and not understanding why. But now, I’m not afraid of you.”

Yrhen was still touching her; it was the only reason this crowd of Castinofs wasn’t bringing her to her knees in supplication. She loved him a little bit for that. 

“I’m about to hand you over to die,” Sidero said. “That doesn’t warrant any fear?” Respect, is what he meant. It’s what he’d always been scrambling for, she realized. He’d wanted it so badly, he’d betrayed his greatest love and best friend in order to get even a sliver of it. 

“It warrants my pity,” she decided. “Because we’re going to be dead, but you’re going to be alive and pathetic and a traitor. And I think that’s worse. I think it’s a lot worse.”

“Good thing you’re dying, then,” he said. She hoped she wasn’t imagining how shaken he sounded. She hoped he’d heard her, and that later, after they were dead, he’d hear her again, hoped her voice would echo in his head the way his had in hers all these years. “Take them to the Court,” Sidero snipped. “The King and Queen are waiting patiently to see their son and the bitch that brought him all the way across the universe to die.”

The Castinof Royal Court was more like a death stadium, or something equally horrifying. It was a small arena with a dirt floor and stadium seats that rose around it in a half-circle, with Yrhen’s parents sitting midway up the rows in metallic thrones, and other official looking Castinofs seated randomly throughout. His parents were not too far away that she had to squint to make out their faces. He favored his mother, but it was his father who had the kinder eyes. None had a kind word for their son, however, as they were led to stand before them by a dozen guards. Noltan and Hectory were brought out as well, but remained pinioned to the side. 

Sidero left the sideline of even more guards in order to step in front of Ephraim and Yrhen. She watched his hands fiddle behind his back, the only sign of his anxiety. This must have been a moment that was a long time coming. His plan was coming to fruition. She eyed the guard closest to her, and the tight grip he had on his scythe. Before the end, she would find a way to steal it; Sidero wasn’t leaving this arena with his head. That was her final promise to herself. It was important, even when facing the end, to have goals. 

“Sidero Wulbrox,” spoke the queen. At her words, everyone bowed their heads, all but Ephraim and Yrhen. “How have you come to find my wayward son?”

Sidero lifted his head, his dark hair catching the Castinof sunlight, which shone like Earth’s, but harsher. Everyone and everything looked to be in a high contrast. It made her head ache. She was thankful the guards had allowed her to remain close to Yrhen’s side, so his fingers could remain brushed against her thigh, keeping her sane. 

“Your Majesties,” Sidero began, speaking in an unfamiliar tone, one of courteousness and poise that sent Ephraim’s eyes rolling. “As you know, for the past ten years, after our separation during the crash on the planet Earth, I have been searching for Prince Yrhen. He could not be found in Blossom, and yet I was sure that was the place to continue looking, as there continued to be rumors of his old ship returning regularly. I concocted a plan, placing a Synthetic in this Earthen town whose sole purpose was to find Prince Yrhen and deliver him to me, so that I may deliver him to you.”

“But it was this,” the queen cut her eyes to Ephraim, “exterminator who found him, wasn’t it?”

“A trivial technicality,” Sidero said. 

“Is it so trivial that this human achieved in a few days what you could not achieve for a decade?” pressed the queen. 

“That’s a good question,” Ephraim whispered to Yrhen. It was not the best time to laugh, but they both managed a smile. It was unfortunate, and sadly predictable, that she would finally find her potential for joy here, at the end. 

“I would respectfully remind the queen that this human was trained by me, in hopes of one day enacting this very plan,” said Sidero. 

“Well, that’s bullshit,” Ephraim muttered. 

“Regardless of your ineptitude,” the queen continued, “you have delivered our son to us, for which we are grateful. Castinof, and the rest of the known universe, owes you a great debt, which shall be repaid immediately. The reward money is yours, Sidero Wulbrox, to use as you please.”

“Thank you, Your Majesties,” Sidero said, his bow dipping even lower. 

“Rise, and move to the side, Wulbrox, so we may speak to our son,” said the king. 

Sidero practically bounced away, flashing Ephraim a smile. She could feel Yrhen’s shoulder tensing up in anger as he looked from his ex to his parents. It was as awkward as she’d imagine meeting a guy’s parents would be. 

“Yrhen.” The king reached for his wife’s hand, like this was a hard moment for them. “You murdered your fiancé, Princess Willamede, on the eve of your wedding, and then fled Castinof. You have been wanted for the past ten years. The universe demands punishment for the death of the beloved princess. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Hi, dad. Good to see you, too.”

“Don’t be smart with your father,” scolded the queen. “Just answer his questions. You owe us that much, at least, after all the heartache you’ve put us through.”

Yrhen sighed, crossing his arms overs his chest. “I didn’t kill Princess Willamede.”

“Son, we’re not here for your lies.” The queen sighed, and it sounded just like Yrhen’s. “This case was investigated years ago. Sidero Wulbrox, your closest confidant at the time, witnessed the murder. Do not consider this the time to exonerate yourself. This is an opportunity to explain why you did what you did, so we may all have some closure before your punishment is acted out.”

“Punish me the way you see fit, but I didn’t kill Willamede. I didn’t want to marry her, that’s true, but I liked her. I didn’t want her dead. I would never—”

“Son, please. If you continue to waste this generous opportunity, we will be forced to execute at once.” This came from the king. Ephraim wondered, if her dad hadn’t died, if he would have ever threatened her with execution. Probably not, but you never know.

“He didn’t do it,” she said, because she had no intention of remaining silent until the execution arrived. “Hi, Yrhen’s parents. I’m Ephraim Camaro. I escorted your son to Castinof—with, by the way, little to no help from Sidero Wulbrox—for the purpose of having this very conversation. Kind of.”

“Is that right?” The queen looked down at her, would have been looking down at her even if they’d been eve-level. 

Ephraim ignored Yrhen pinching her side, cleared her throat, and spoke louder, the way she spoke to stingy clients who’d tricked her into killing a baker’s dozen of dwellers instead of the agreed upon one. “I haven’t known him very long, but it’s pretty clear to me that this was all a big, stupid misunderstanding. We’ve been traveling together a few days now, and I’ve hardly seen him kill anyone. Maim, sure, when the situation called for it, but—”

“You are not helping,” Yrhen rasped. “Like, at all.”

She shushed him, swatting at his hand, which was still pinching her. “You’re going to condemn your son to death because of what this guy said?” She pointed at Sidero. “And not to make this about me, but you’re going to condemn me to death, just because I brought him here? If you think about it, I’m the one who deserves the reward money, not Sidero Wulbrox. The only reason he’s here at all is because he promised to admit the truth to the court. That he lied about everything. He never witnessed a murder, and he wasn’t kidnapped by Yrhen. He told us he’d explained this to you already, but I have a feeling he was lying.”

“Quite the claim, human,” said the queen. “But what proof of this admission do you have?”

“What proof do you have that Yrhen did it, other than the word of this asshole?” Again, she pointed to Sidero, who was looking disgruntled. “Was there any evidence found at all? Or were you just so eager to blame someone, you slapped the label of murderer on your own son without even bothering to properly investigate?”

“We don’t really have a justice system set up, like on Earth,” Yrhen whispered. “It’s pretty much whatever my parents think.”

“That’s so stupid,” she returned, growing angrier by the second. She raised her voice again at the king and queen. “Your son fled because he didn’t want to be forced into some marriage when he was in love with someone else. Was that someone else a total loser? As it turns out, yes, but that was Yrhen’s mistake to make. It’s entirely coincidental that he disappeared the night of the princess’ murder, and while it’s unfortunate and, yeah, looks kind of shady, that’s all it was. A coincidence.”

“Ephraim Camaro,” said the queen. She did the single eyebrow lift. “You’re mouthy and brash, and you will be executed first.”

“Whoa, what?”

Yrhen moved in front of her, trying to block her from his parents, even though the guards were already grabbing at her arms, the blades of their scythes pressing into her back. “Don’t do this!” he yelled up at his parents, who were utterly unmoved by the proceedings. “She only wanted to help! Kill me, but let her go. Please!”

She had no intention of going peacefully to her death, and she still needed to get a blade between Sidero’s head and his shoulders, so she struggled against the guards, against the scythes, even when she felt them cutting at her skin. 

“Bring her forward,” ordered the king. 

Her feet lifted off the ground as she kicked. Her vision had gone red around the edges; she needed to get to Sidero. Sidero had to pay for this. She couldn’t die before he’d paid. The guards dragged her across the dirt floor and threw her to her knees. She jumped up at once, only to be knocked down again. She was pretty sure she was bleeding from several places, but she couldn’t feel any pain. 

A moment later, Yrhen pushed through the guards and crashed to his knees beside her. “Kill me first,” he begged. “So I don’t have to watch her die.” He had tears in his eyes, but when she met his gaze, she realized they weren’t from sadness, they were from rage, a rage so strong it had to ooze out of somewhere. They were the same angry tears she had in her own eyes. Tears, because this was so unfair. Tears, because Sidero was going to get away with this. Tears, because the last few days had changed her and now she would never get the time to enjoy the change. 

“I remember a time, my son,” began the queen, “when you would never have gone to your knees for another. You are not the prince we raised.”

“Please don’t kill her,” he said, but his voice was choked, and Ephraim was the only one that heard his plea. 

“Yrhen,” she said, because she didn’t want the last thing she saw to be Sidero’s smug, triumphant grin. She wanted it to be Yrhen. She deserved for it to be Yrhen. “Look at me.”

He looked, his hair flopping over his eyes. Something in his expression shifted. A small smile quirked his lips. “Ephraim,” he said. “I would have let you tie me up and take me anywhere that first night. And been really fucking pleased about it. Just…full disclosure.”

She grimaced. He was such an idiot. “You’re a liar. You thought I was a spy, remember?”

“A really hot spy,” he corrected. “So.”

“So.” She smiled. 

“Ephraim Camaro, you are sentenced to death,” came the terrifying boom of the queen. She tried to only look at Yrhen, and not at the guards holding her tight, grabbing the back of her hair and angling her forward. 

“Don’t look,” she told Yrhen. “Use this as a distraction. Try to run. Try to get Noltan and Hectory, too, but you. You get out, okay?” The hands holding her were cold and cruel, and their touch overwhelmed Yrhen’s. She felt their influence, felt the anger evaporating, felt a brittle complacency, a charade of calm. She wasn’t afraid. She could still see Yrhen’s face. “Don’t look.” 

He turned his head, so he wouldn’t have to see hers get cut off, but she kept looking at him, at the back of his hair, the little wave there, and the tightness of his shoulders. 

“Do it!” shouted the queen. 

She reached out and grabbed the only piece of Yrhen she could reach—the waist of his shirt. She heard the shuffling of the guard above her. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to. She’d wasted almost half her life feeling miserable and now she was going to die. And Noltan was going to see, and Yrhen was going to die next, and Lav was going to hear about this and she was going to feel terrible. She’d look phenomenal, but she’d feel terrible. And maybe Blossom wouldn’t be overrun with dwellers anymore, but Ephraim wouldn’t be there to revel in her victory. She’d be a headless corpse on a planet far from home. Across the arena, she heard Sidero’s laughter. 

Then she heard his gasp. 

Yrhen made a strangled noise in his throat, and she wondered if she’d already been killed and was experiencing some sort of post-death dramatics. But instead of a bright light appearing, a shadow passed overhead, darkening the dirty floor she was kneeling on. The hands holding her didn’t let go, but their grips loosened. With her head still forced down, but very much attached, she couldn’t see much, and for several moments, she was extremely confused. But she was alive. She was pretty sure, anyway. 

“Get off her,” Yrhen demanded, and suddenly, she was pulled off the floor and standing beside him. He held her pressed protectively against his chest, smothering her, but she clutched at his chest regardless, much preferring to die this way than the other. She buried her nose into his shirt and turned her head just enough to see the king and queen muttering to each other in their thrones. The shadow above remained, and when she found the will to look up, a strange sound escaped her lips. Was it a sob? 

There, in the sky, was their little ship. Beside her, she heard the guards whispering. “They were supposed to be gone already,” they said. “The queen just hailed them down.”

And sure enough, a moment later, the ship came down, landing directly in the center of the arena, which sent everyone scattering, including Ephraim and Yrhen. In the commotion, they ended up back beside Noltan and Hectory. Noltan wrapped himself around Ephraim’s back, since her front was still firmly encased by Yrhen, and she found herself in the middle of a weird but comforting sandwich. 

But she couldn’t be that comforted, because they were still surrounded by guards, and she hadn’t heard anyone declare they shouldn’t cut off her head. 

The door of the ship opened. A woman stepped out Ephraim had never seen before. She had a shaved head, bright red lips, and so many piercings along the edge of her ear, it looked to be made entirely of metal from far away. Lav stepped out beside her with Harry perched on her shoulder. 

“Lav,” Ephraim whispered.

Even though she was surrounded by a sea of guards, Lav found her gaze immediately and gave her a thumbs up. The woman beside her was holding something in her hands, and when they stepped from the ship, she held it aloft. The crowd went silent. The king and queen had all their attention focused on the overdramatic new arrivals. 

“That’s Fevek,” Yrhen whispered against the top of her head. 

Ephraim stared reverently at Fevek and Lav and Harry as they came forward to address the king and queen. Beside her, she could hear Noltan crying softly. It was from relief that they hadn’t been abandoned. She knew because she felt it, too.

“Your Majesties,” spoke Fevek, and her voice sounded so different when it wasn’t muffled through an intercom. “We have a confession from the murderer.”

“A bit unorthodox to arrive in this manner,” sniped the queen, “but what can one expect from a Noturok and a lowly engineer, Castinof or not? Very well. Come forth with your confession, and set our son’s lies to rest.”

“You didn’t greet my friend,” said Lav, petting Harry’s leaves. “Maybe you didn’t see him. But he’s not from Castinof or Noturok. He’s Mirdyan. I believe you know what their species is famous for.”

“Spywork,” replied the queen. 

“That’s right. Harry, introduce yourself to the king and queen.” She coaxed him off her shoulder and held him up in her hands. 

“Your Majesties of the Castinof Court,” Harry said, his tiny voice carrying with unexpected authority throughout the arena. “I am a retired spy of Mirdya, but our people do not forget the skills we’ve honed since birth. Now, I am a faithful servant of Prince Yrhen, and after swearing my fealty, I acted as only a Mirdyan can act, and have been hard at work for my Lord.”

Ephraim and Yrhen exchanged confused glances. 

“You mean to betray your lord’s trust by providing proof of his guilt?” inquired the king. 

“On the contrary,” replied Harry, his leaves bristling. “Last night, when Sidero Wulbrox boarded our ship with the expressed intention of delivering you his testimony of Prince Yrhen’s innocence, I thought it might be beneficial to secrete myself into his private quarters, in case some new information might make itself known. To me, his behavior was highly suspect.”

From across the arena, there was movement. It was Sidero, and he was bee-lining towards the exit. 

“I suggest stopping Sidero Wulbrox from leaving,” Harry said, “for he is the one who murdered Princess Willamede.”

The collected gasp stilled the guards momentarily, but then two caught Sidero by the arms and dragged him forward after an affirmative nod from the queen. 

“This is madness,” Sidero complained. 

“I want to hear what the Mirdyan has to say,” said the queen. “Continue, please, Harry.”

“Thank you, Your Majesties.” Harry bowed his leafy head. “Before placing myself in Sidero Wulbrox’s private quarters, I informed my favorite friend of my suspicions. With Lav’s help, I was placed into a pot with a discreet recording device. I waited, submerged in my pot, happy to be useful to my Lord, even though it was quite cramped, until, finally, Sidero Wulbrox entered the room for the evening.”

“This is ludicrous!” Sidero yelled. A guard smacked him in the head. 

“After humming the Earth song “Space Jam” in its entirety, Sidero Wulbrox pulled from his pants a radio and made a call. From the one-sided sound of the conversation, it was clear he was speaking to a message machine, to be listened to later, for his ears only. I believe he was making notes for his next book.”

“Oh my god,” Ephraim whispered, pulling far enough away from Yrhen’s chest to look fully at Sidero. 

“You have the recording?” asked the queen. 

“Fevek?” Harry gave her a polite nod. 

She held up the recording device, pressed a button, and the entire arena filled with the sound of Sidero’s voice. This is how the recording went, spoken in a ragged half-whisper:

“I’ve boarded their ship, with no one any wiser of my plan. Had alone time with Yrhen. He looks good, but he’s grown hard over the years. Wouldn’t even let me blow him. Ephraim’s prudishness has rubbed off on him, that much is obvious. Explore this dynamic earlier in the second chapter, maybe. From sex fiend to cold fish: the dark side of murder. Chapter One needs to be all about the murder itself. These idiots think Yrhen did it? Let’s re-write the scene from the first book, but make it more graphic. More like how it really was, when I killed her…”

Sidero was really struggling to get away now. But the recording kept going. Fevek’s expression was solemn, but beside her, Lav was holding Harry up with one hand while the other stuck a candy cigarette between her grinning mouth.

“…use some of the reward money to pay back my publisher. With Yrhen’s death in the news, I should get a surge in sales and some fresh publicity. Note to self, reiterate early on that I was victimized and traumatized, and how seeing my old kidnapper again sent me into a deep depression while I wrote the second book. (Laughter) Nothing more satisfying than gaining the sympathy of the masses, when no one can fucking figure out that Willamede’s murderer is standing right in front of them. The level of idiocy in this universe is astou—”

Fevek cut off the recording. 

“As you could plainly hear,” said Harry, “Sidero Wulbrox murdered Princess Willamede, and by the sound of it, it was all done in an attempt to publish books. Following the end of his notations, Sidero Wulbrox proceeded to go to bed. After I was assured he’d gone to sleep, I escaped my pot and brought the recording to Lav. We determined it best to keep the truth a secret and not make our reveal until the sentencing was about to commence, as Sidero Wulbrox has proven to be a slippery fellow, and we did not wish him to slip away from punishment.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Ephraim called across the guards. 

Lav shrugged. “You and Yrhen would have been all weird about it, if we’d told you the plan,” she called back. “We needed to get Sidero in front of the court, with no time to escape. So we didn’t tell you.”

“I almost got my head cut off!”

“Sorry. There was some unexpected traffic,” Lav said with a wince. “But we made it in time, didn’t we? And everything’s cleared up now, right?” She looked up at the king and queen. “You’re not gonna cut off my friend’s head anymore, right?”

Yrhen’s parents stared down at the complicated mess that was their court. “I suppose not,” replied the king. “Son, I do wish you’d explained all this to us before we went through all this trouble.”

“What?” Yrhen gaped. 

“Bring Sidero Wulbrox forward,” commanded the queen. 

It was Ephraim’s luck that Sidero had to pass right by her. Their eyes met. She looked into them, knowing it would be the last time. She hadn’t been able to say goodbye the first time, so long ago, and this time she didn’t want to. He looked at her, and she was happy to break eye contact first, opting to look up at Yrhen instead. 

“Do you think they’ll let me cut off his head?” she asked. “Instead of a guard?”

“I wouldn’t push it,” Yrhen warned. 

Sidero was made to kneel before the thrones, his knees hitting the same patch of dirt that Ephraim had been forced against only minutes earlier. 

“Sidero Wulbrox,” said the queen. “You murdered Princess Willamede, framed Prince Yrhen, and published a work of slander. You have lied continuously to your king and queen, and attempted to have our son killed.”

“These people are really wishy-washy,” Ephraim murmured. Yrhen pinched her side. 

“For these crimes, you are sentenced to death.”

“No, please,” Sidero said, all charm gone from his voice and replaced by a pathetic whimper. “You can’t trust the Mirdyan. That recording was doctored! I didn’t do it! I swear to you. Everything I’ve said has been the truth.”

“Enough of your lies, Wulbrox. Your words have done enough harm. Guards, kill him.”

“No. No! Yrhen, tell them the truth! Tell them that’s not who I am! Ephraim, help me, plea—”

She didn’t turn away from it. She watched the blade come down and strike flesh, muscle, and bone. She watched it because it could have been her, almost was, and because she owed it to her father, and to herself. Besides, she’d seen worse. Watching Sidero’s head detach from his body hardly fazed her. Maybe that said something dark and unflattering about Ephraim Camaro, but she was okay with that. A lot of things about her were dark and unflattering, and a lot of those things were because of Sidero. Sydney. 

“Yrhen,” she said, because he’d watched, too, and Sidero had meant as much, if not more, to him. “Don’t think I care, but are you okay?”

He looked okay. He looked more than okay, even if his voice was shaky when he answered. “This has been a weird week,” he said. 

She nodded, because it sure had, but she didn’t have a chance to properly respond, because the royals were addressing them once again, this time much more pleasantly, but Yrhen’s mom was still looking at Ephraim like she was nothing more than an uncivilized human. Which was true, but rude. 

As they dragged away Sidero’s body—and carried away his head—Ephraim, Yrhen, Noltan, Hectory, Lav, Fevek, and Harry the Houseplant came to stand in front of the thrones. The ground was stained beneath their feet. Ephraim would need to retire these penny loafers for good when this was all done. Or perhaps have them bronzed and mounted on the wall.

“Yrhen,” began his mother, “you have not shown great instincts in the matter of choosing your friends.”

“Um,” Yrhen answered. 

“Did your father and I not tell you time and again that Sidero was an unworthy companion?”

“You sure did.”

“And now I fear, even with a pronouncement of your innocence, it will be very hard for us to find you a love match. Few should find the idea of marrying a murderer favorable.”

“I’m not a murderer, mother.”

“No, but you’ve a reputation, my dear, don’t you?” She sighed. “Perhaps someone from the outer-most planets will be desperate enough…”

“I’m not interested in getting married to some stranger, mother,” he insisted. “Or even remaining on Castinof. I came back here to clear my name, but there’s a reason I left in the first place. I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t want to live like a Castinof Prince. I’ve been happy on Earth. Relatively speaking.”

“You did the best you could, when you had no other choice, son, and that’s commendable,” said the king. “But you don’t have to pretend anymore. You can come back home and live the life you deserve.”

“I don’t think I’ve done anything to deserve this,” Yrhen scathed. “I want to go home. And that’s Earth.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, my dear,” said the queen. She stood from her throne. She looked tall, but as it was clear she wasn’t coming down to face them directly, Ephraim had no way of gauging her true height. “Castinof has been in turmoil since her beloved prince fled. You cannot leave now, not when we need you to make the rounds. We must comfort our people, give them solace that you are not a killer.”

“No. I’m going back to Vegas.”

“I don’t think you understand,” said the king, and for the first time, he sounded mean. “You’re not leaving this planet again. You will do your duty.”

“You can’t make me.”

“No? Guards, if Prince Yrhen continues to disobey our orders, kill his companions. Start with the blonde.” 

“You’re not serious,” Yrhen said. 

But Ephraim knew they were. Their eyes were cold and heartless. They’d kill her and the others in an instant, with no remorse. 

“They won’t be harmed,” insisted the king. “If you agree to stay and do your duty as prince, your friends can get on their ship immediately and leave with no consequences. Or you can put up a fuss and they will be killed. What will it be, son? Keep in mind my patience is thin, and so is your mother’s.”

Yrhen turned to Ephraim; his eyes were too big, too scared. This, above all, was the fate he’d dreaded. She tried to make it easier for him, reached up and tugged at his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. “It’s okay. You can send me a check for finishing the job,” she said. I’m sorry, is what she wanted to say. But neither of them liked apologies, and this was neither of their faults.

“You better go,” he said, “before they decide they want to charge you for something else. They’ll make something up. They’ve done it before.”

She kept gazing at him expectantly. 

“Fine. I’ll send you a check,” he promised. “You did clear my name, like you promised.”

“I did,” she agreed. “And I’m keeping this shirt.”

“Good,” he replied softly. “I’m glad.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Go,” he whispered, and then he grabbed her hand, holding it tight. “And not that I care or anything, but take care.”

“Take care?” she asked, squeezing him back just as hard. “Shut up.”

She stepped away, out of his reach, so he could say goodbye to the others. Yrhen hugged Hectory tight, although his friend was telling him repeatedly that he would return once Ephraim was safely back on Earth. He hugged Noltan, too, though they had less to say. Lav kissed his cheek and gave his butt a light slap, gave him the rest of her candy cigarette pack. Everyone’s eyes were dry until Harry leapt from Lav’s arms and threw himself at Yrhen’s feet. 

“Harry?” Lav whispered, crouching down to whisper something in his ear. Her indigo eyes swirled and a tear trickled down her cheek. After a moment, she nodded and stood. To Ephraim’s shock, she took her hand, like she needed it to hold herself steady. “Harry will stay with you, Yrhen,” she declared. “He’ll keep you safe.”

Yrhen looked down in surprise at the little plant/spy, then up at Lav, a hand over his heart. “We’ll keep each other safe,” he promised. 

Lav nodded, but she was trembling. Ephraim let go of her hand only to slip a supportive arm around her waist. Maybe, secretly, she was also using Lav as support. Because Yrhen only had one person left to say goodbye to, and then they had to go. 

He shook Fevek’s hand, looking startled when she pulled him into a hug. “I’ll get them safely home,” she said, though Ephraim was sure once they were aboard, she’d never see Fevek again. 

“I know you will.” He pulled away, scooping Harry into the crook of his elbow. He appraised them all, saving his final glance for Ephraim. “Later.”

“Later,” she replied. 

He took a deep breath, turned away, and started up the stadium steps for his parents. The guards didn’t move as Ephraim and the others walked back to the ship. She tried to catch another glimpse of Yrhen before the door slid shut, but he was too far above her now. With her breath catching, she let Lav lead her away from the door so it could close. 

“I’m getting us the hell out of here before someone remembers you killed all those guards inside the cells,” Hectory said before scurrying off towards the piloting room. “Noltan? You coming?”

Noltan took Ephraim’s hand. Lav held the other. Fevek, as predicted, had already disappeared down into the engine room. “I’m gonna stay with these two for a bit,” he said. 

Hectory smiled indulgently before hurrying off. 

A minute later, the floor began to vibrate. They were leaving Castinof. Leaving Yrhen. 

“I think I saw some beers in the mess,” Lav said. She was crying, but she was ignoring it. “Let’s partake.”

Ephraim and Noltan let her pull them toward the mess, let her thrust a beer from the rainbow cabinet into their hands, let her toast Harry, and Yrhen, and the death of Sidero Wulbrox. 

And then they partook. 

It wasn’t until Noltan leaned forward and patted at her face with his sleeve did Ephraim realize she was crying.


	17. Chapter 17

Trips back home are always more depressing than when you’re on your way to someplace exciting. Trips back home, back to normalcy, seem to take longer, seem to zap your energy, seem to leave you feeling desolate, and thinking: this is it. No, she hadn’t wanted to go to space, hadn’t wanted to be semi-abducted into an adventure through the galaxy, hadn’t wanted to spend so much time with a space prince, but it had all happened anyway, and now it was over. 

The trip back to Earth took forever. She slept in Yrhen’s room—not just because she didn’t want to sleep where Sidero had slept—and spent most of her time in his bed, picturing what his bedroom in Vegas looked like. She’d never gotten to see it, but she could guess, based on everything else. It probably had too many hanging plants, and a fancy, four-post canopy bed with an indulgent amount of pillows. There were probably posters of lame bands he liked on the walls. Probably some lava lamps; he seemed like a lava lamp kind of guy. She would have made fun of him if she’d seen them, most likely, but she’d give anything to see them now. To see who he was outside of this too-clean, too-empty room that was nothing like the Yrhen she knew. 

But depressing as it was, the stark bedroom was better than going to the mess, where Lav was always waiting to bombard her with irritating questions. The sum of their conversations went like this, on average:

Lav: “Are you okay? You look terrible.”

Ephraim: “Why wouldn’t I be okay? You look terrible, too.”

Lav: “I just mean, you and Yrhen were getting all hands-holdy there at the end.”

Ephraim: “We were going to die. I was trying to be nice.”

Lav: “You never try to be nice. You aren’t nice. So what’s the deal?”

Ephraim: “The deal is I want a Twinkie and you’re hoarding the box.”

Lav: “Don’t be a bitch. I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m your best friend, and you should be nice to me. And give me a raise.”

Ephraim: “I’m going to throw up. You’re literally going to make me throw up.”

Lav: “I hope you know you’re the most dramatic person I know. In, like, the galaxy. Here’s your goddamn Twinkie.”

When she wasn’t running into Lav, she was running into Noltan, on the few occasions when he wasn’t plastered to Hectory’s side. These discussions went, generally, as follows:

Noltan: “I really didn’t know I was running on some evil prince-seeking program.”

Ephraim: “Of course not, kid. You didn’t even know you were a Synthetic until a few days ago.”

Noltan: “I never would have turned you guys over to him otherwise.”

Ephraim: “No one thinks that. Can I get to the bathroom?”

Noltan: “Oh, sorry. Yeah. It’s just…um…Hectory’s cute, don’t you think?”

Ephraim: “My bladder is about to burst, Noltan. You’re killing me.”

Noltan: “Sorry, sorry. I’m leaving. Just…do you think he really likes me?”

Ephraim: “You’re a match made in Synthetic heaven.”

Noltan: “You think so? I kind of think so, too.”

So she didn’t leave Yrhen’s room much at all, except to eat junk food and use the bathroom. She definitely didn’t shower in the shower stall from intergalactic hell. She didn’t feel good. She was uneasy and tense, and the blood wasn’t coming out of Yrhen’s flannel shirt, no matter how many times she scrubbed it in the sink, but she kept wearing it anyway. Even if it was pretty grody at this point.

The only good news was that her nightmares had sort of…stopped. She slept and dreamt and didn’t wake up gasping for breath, didn’t see Sidero, didn’t see her father dying. She felt generally awful. But she was well-rested, maybe for the first time ever. And it was weird, being so depressed and so well-rested at the same time. She thought maybe it was from sleeping in Yrhen’s bed that helped, but that was a stupid thought, so she only let herself think it once or twice. 

It took a week before they were orbiting Earth. Hectory and Fevek didn’t have to strain the engines this time, because no mercs were chasing them and the only pressing issue that needed attention was getting Ephraim home before she blew a gasket and killed everyone on the ship. They made it just in time. Her eye was twitching when the ship landed in the middle of the desert oasis, in the same place it’d been before. They wouldn’t need to ever come back to this spot; not now that Yrhen was gone for good. 

She was the first to step out. It was the middle of the afternoon and it was hot and arid, the day far too bright for eyes that had grown used to artificial spaceship lights. She inhaled deeply, smelling the Earth. She didn’t want to be that kind of human, but it smelled way better than the other planets she’d been to, even if she could have done without the instant sweat on her forehead. It was too hot for her flannel, but she kept it on anyway. 

Lav stepped out behind her. She’d been sad, too, with Harry gone, and maybe Ephraim hadn’t been the most sensitive to that. A pang of guilt made her turn to her with a peace offering smile. Her personal growth of the past few weeks astounded even her. 

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “About Fevek?”

The engineer had not been seen the entire trip, not by Ephraim at least, but Lav had been sleeping somewhere every night, and it wasn’t in the guest room. 

“Fevek is taking the ship back with Hectory, so they can be there for Yrhen,” Lav explained, holding a hand above her eyes to block out the blinding sun. “We already said our goodbyes.” She shrugged. “She might visit though. It’s whatever. I’m not invested. She might have said she would come for, like, Thanksgiving. And my birthday and stuff. No big.”

“So you didn’t really say goodbye,” Ephraim surmised. 

“Semantics,” replied Lav. 

A truck was sitting there, covered in dust, the window broken out. “I forgot about the truck.” Ephraim walked up to it, reached in, opened the glove compartment, and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. They weren’t nice, like the collection Lav had at home; they must have been a pair Barb left behind on accident. But they were there, and she tossed them to Lav. She smirked at the dollar store frames before sliding them over her nose. And then was the Lav Ephraim knew and barely tolerated. 

The ship hadn’t turned off its engine. It sat in the sand, humming, as Hectory escorted Noltan to the door. Ephraim had expected Noltan to look broken up about losing his robot boyfriend, but he looked fine. Composed. Better than she looked.

Noltan held Hectory’s hand as they stepped off the ship and walked up to the truck. “I sleep on Ephraim’s couch,” he was saying, “but I’m sure she won’t mind if I have guests stay over.”

“Noltan,” replied Hectory, “when I come to stay, we’ll be getting our own place. No offense to Ms. Camaro.” He shot her a wink. 

“None taken. But, just FYI, it is a pullout couch.”

“Generous as ever.” Hectory kissed Noltan hard on the mouth, shameless of his audience, or maybe just oblivious. When he pulled away, Noltan was blushing, but he looked happy. “I’ve got to go see a prince about a planet, which he’s now semi in charge of.” He sighed, shaking his head. “But I’m coming back.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Noltan said, pushing him gently away. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got these two.”

Hectory eyed Ephraim and Lav. He didn’t look fully appreciative, which made Ephraim laugh out loud. 

“Travel safely, and all that,” she offered. She was terribly jealous. Of everyone, really. Fevek would be coming back for Lav. Hectory would be coming back for Noltan. Ephraim’s heart was pounding from the mere mention of “prince.” And she would never see him again. 

Hectory clapped her on the shoulder. “Enjoy a merc-free Blossom,” he said. Then he exchanged a mysterious and unexpected handshake with Lav, kissed Noltan once more, and got back on the ship. The door slid shut on his salute. 

Noltan’s sigh was dreamy, not sad, as they sat on the back of the truck and watched the ship float into the air. The sunlight danced on its reflective surface, and then zap—like that—it was gone. 

The three of them sat in silence for a long moment, just watching the sky. But it didn’t last. Life goes on, always. 

“Noltan, you’re driving,” Ephraim ordered, jumping off the back of the truck and skirting around to the passenger door. The keys were still in the ignition, where Yrhen had left them. 

Noltan came around to sit in front of the steering wheel without complaint, while Lav slid into the middle and Ephraim took the window seat. He cranked the engine and it came roaring to life, as if it hadn’t spent days in the desert waiting for them. Lav cranked the radio. It was “Baby One More Time”. Again. 

Ephraim rolled her eyes, but her disgust didn’t keep her from singing along as they peeled back onto the main road and headed for home. 

Blossom looked the same, but different. Even the most familiar places look different when you’ve not seen them for a while. The sky was bluer, the clouds were fluffier, and the expressions on people’s faces were nastier. 

“Is everyone glaring at us?” Ephraim asked as they traveled down the street. The strip mall was just ahead, but the passersby stared at the truck as they chugged along, making the journey seem endless.

“Maybe they thought you were gone for good,” Lav suggested. “And were afraid they’d lost their favorite exterminator.”

“I’m not giving you a raise,” Ephraim said. 

“Ugh.”

When Noltan finally pulled into the parking lot in front of the store, things became a bit clearer. The windows were all smashed and there was glass everywhere. A stench filled the air, probably from the piles of rotting dweller bodies no one had been around to clean up. 

“Oh no,” Ephraim muttered as she eyed the destruction. No wonder they’d been getting nasty looks. They’d left this place a slaughterhouse. It certainly smelled like one. “Blegh.” She held her nose as she approached the front door. The glass was shattered here, too, but that hadn’t stopped someone from taping a piece of paper on the frame. 

“What’s that?” Noltan asked, the keys still jangling in his hand. 

Ephraim turned the paper over in her hands. Read it once, twice. The third time, when she read it out loud to the others, she was laughing. 

To Ms. Ephraim Camaro of Camaro Exterminations,   
We have come by every day this week to speak to you personally, but as you have not re-appeared, we were forced to hold our town meeting without you. A shame, as you were the main topic of discussion. After driving wildly through town with a herd of unspeakable horrors on your tail, absolutely trashing Main Street, and then leaving carcasses to rot in your store with no apology or explanation, we have voted you out of our township. We have not needed to take such extreme measures in a hundred years, but we cannot allow Blossom to be treated this way, nor its citizens. You will find an eviction notice in your mailbox, and another copy of this letter, in case this one is lost. Ms. Camaro, it is a shame, but this must be done. We like to uphold a certain amount of class in Blossom, and the votes speak for themselves. You must go.   
Please leave ASAP. Seriously. We’re not kidding.   
Sincerely,   
The Blossom Social Committee

It was funny. It was hilarious. It had her doubled over. She shook. That’s how funny it was. How perfect.

“I’ve been kicked out of Blossom,” she wheezed. “Oh my god. I’m crying.” She wiped at her eyes. “Those fuckers voted me out. That’s so good. Oh, my stomach hurts.” She pressed the paper against Noltan’s chest, kept laughing while he scanned it with his eyes. 

“Are they even allowed to do this?” he asked.

Inside the office, the phone was ringing. Lav stepped over the broken glass, tiptoeing around decomposing dwellers, and answered it, turning to Ephraim and pointing to herself, as if to say, “Look at how good I am at my job. I will walk over dead things to answer the phone.”

Ephraim watched her, her eyes still cloudy with tears. Lav’s eyes were obscured from the shades, but Ephraim was used to reading her face without the eyes. Her smile was faint and her eyebrows lifted over the frames of Barb’s glasses. 

“Really?” she asked into the receiver. Her fingers—the polish dreadfully chipped—twirled the curly cord. “I’ll need to check her schedule…I might have an opening for you…oh, yeah…I find that hard to believe…well, okay, I can book it…she can get that done for you…tonight.”

“Are you seriously booking me a job right now?” Ephraim asked. 

Lav held up a hand to shush her, the phone still pressed to her ear. “Fine, fine, fine…She can handle that for you, I’m sure…Okay, bye.” She hung up and tip toed back across the broken glass. 

Ephraim and Noltan stared at her. 

“You have a job,” she announced. “You’re welcome.”

“I’ve been kicked out of town!” Ephraim yelled, but she wasn’t mad, or even a little upset. She was mostly yelling because of the absurdity. “The mercs, the dwellers, they’re gone. I’ve been rendered obsolete. Blossom has kicked me out!”

“This job isn’t in Blossom,” Lav explained patiently. “Noltan, are you down to drive a little longer?”

“Where’s the job?” he asked. 

“Oh, up the road a ways,” Lav answered, already dragging them all back to the truck. 

“Are we going to leave this place like this?” Noltan asked, even as he revved up the engine. 

“I need to get to my weapons chest and stuff, before we go for good,” Ephraim complained, harrumphing when Lav ignored her and pulled her seatbelt across her, trapping her in the truck. Ephraim didn’t even care; she didn’t have the energy or the desire to put up a fight. Which didn’t bode well for the job she was being delivered to, but…whatever. 

Noltan tried to ask a few more questions, but Lav cranked the radio and drowned him out, only occasionally calling out directions in his ear. Ephraim didn’t complain or argue; she just sat back and enjoyed the ride while she brainstormed what the actual hell she was going to do with her life. The home she’d fought so hard to save didn’t want her. There was nothing—or almost nothing—left to exterminate. This job would probably be her last, and then what? 

She was so lost in her thoughts, she didn’t realize where they were headed until the lights started giving her a headache. Evening had fallen, and the Strip was a sparkling, loud masterpiece. “The job is in Vegas?” she asked. “Did one of the dwellers come here to party or something? Because I’m not in the mood for this.” She wasn’t. She’d had no intention of ever coming back here, if she could manage it, and now here she was, bombarded by memories of the last time. It only became worse when Noltan took a turn off the main drag and pulled outside of the Blue Rock Gentleman’s Club. 

“Are you torturing me on purpose?” she asked. “Not to be sentimental, but I kind of don’t want to be here right now.”

“You’re the most sentimental person ever,” Lav accused. “And sorry, but this is where the job is. So,” she waved her hand towards the door, “skedaddle. Go make a living so you can pay me.”

“I’m rich.”

“Did you just say, ‘I’m a bitch?’?” Lav asked, batting her eyelashes. 

“Noltan,” Ephraim complained, but he was avoiding her, his head turned out the window. She huffed, but piled out of the truck anyway. 

“Maybe someone saw you in the yellow pages and called you for a regular bug problem. Did it look dirty in there when you were here before?” asked Lav. 

“I’m not in the yellow pages, because I’m not a real exterminator, remember?” Ephraim looked at the front door of the club with a frown. “I’ll check it out, but I feel like I’m about to be bombarded by dwellers looking to avenge their slaughtered families or something. If I’m not back in five, come save me.”

“Before, you would have said to leave, if you weren’t back,” said Lav. 

“Well, this time I want you to come save me.” She rolled up her sleeves. She was sure she smelled gross, and she knew she looked gross. It would probably make up for going in without a weapon. The dwellers would drop dead at the mere sight of her. 

“How about twenty minutes?” Lav asked. “I feel like that’s a better number for this kind of job.”

Luckily, there wasn’t a bouncer at the door. There wasn’t even a line outside, even though it was the right time of day for one. The door was probably locked. She’d have to go around back or something. She wasn’t sure how she was going to explain to whoever it was that had called her that she wasn’t the kind of exterminator for them. She wasn’t the kind of exterminator for anyone anymore. 

She tried the front door anyway. It was miraculously unlocked, so she went inside. She experienced an intense auditory confusion at first, because Buffalo Tom was playing really loud, and for a second, she thought she’d traveled back in time. But it wasn’t like last time at all, because the club was completely empty. There was no bartender, or new management, or cleaning lady. The lights were dimmed, and glow in the dark stars glimmered from the ceiling. She shook her head at them; she’d had enough of stars.

She walked further into the club, and the music lowered. Her heart sped up; someone—or something—was messing with her. 

Her hands balled into fists. Her adrenaline pumped. Something touched her shoulder and she spun around, fists flying. She caught Yrhen square in the nose, and he stumbled back, laughing. 

“Yrhen!” she yelled, following after him and stripping out of the flannel so she could hold it under his bloody nose. “How are you here? Am I having a psychotic break and hallucinating you?”

“The only thing broken is my nose,” Yrhen said, but when he took the flannel away, the bleeding wasn’t really that bad. It was only a trickle, really. And he was handsome enough to pull off a slightly crooked nose, she thought. He’d probably agree. 

She stood in her sports bra and spandex blue space pants, staring at him in amazement. “Yrhen. How are you here?”

“I might have done something stupid.”

“Yrhen.”

“Me and Harry stole a ship. Right after you guys took off, I told my parents I was going to the bathroom, and we went to the docking station, and we stole a ship. We got here ahead of you by, like, three days. We went to Blossom first. Jesus, that place is a mess.”

She slapped his chest, then kept her hand there. “You stole a ship?”

His smile was pompous and perfect. “There’s a chance they might come after me, try to drag me back home, but…”

“But?”

“There’s a chance they might decide I’m not worth it. Either way, I know how to hide.”

“Do you? I found you in less than twenty-four hours, Henry.”

“Noltan found me,” Yrhen pointed out, quite accurately. “And I’ll dye my hair or something. Grow a beard. Do you like brunettes?”

Her other hand spread across his chest. She wasn’t supposed to see him again. Ever. But here he was, standing in front of her, bleeding and beautiful. “I’m gonna kill Lav,” she declared. “She could have told me you were the job. I would have showered!” She tried to move away, but Yrhen wrapped his arms around her waist and wouldn’t let go. “No! I’m gross!”

“Nah,” he said. “You’re just my type.”

“You’re into poor hygiene?”

“I’m into you,” he answered. He bent his head, his lips skimming across her cheek. 

“But I’m prickly,” she insisted. “And I’m bad at being with people. I suck. Lav made an entire list of reasons why.”

“I’m not people,” Yrhen argued. “I’m an alien. Maybe you’re good with aliens. Maybe the same rules don’t apply. I can make you a list of reasons why I couldn’t stand to stay on Castinof one more second, but you might get embarrassed, because you’d be on the list a million times.”

She tilted her head so she could see him, really see him. He was here. It was impossible, but it was true. A thought startled her, made her slap at his chest again, but lightly—delicately. “Hectory and Fevek are on their way back to Castinof to see you.”

“No, they’re not. I contacted them before I called Lav. They should be outside, surprising the hell out of them as we speak. Harry, too.”

She wanted to turn her eyes away from him, because the way he was looking at her was so…permanent. But she clenched her fingers into his shirt instead. “I got kicked out of Blossom,” she confessed. 

“I know. I saw the very polite letter on your door.” He was smirking, the jackass. “Looks like you’ll have to stay here a while. I know it’s not as nice as Blossom, or as sophisticated, but…”

“Shut up.”

Yrhen smiled and placed his hands over hers, holding them firmly to his chest. His heart was beating fast. Maybe he was as nervous as she was. “Shut up?” he asked, his eyebrow quirking. Just the one. 

“Yeah,” she said, squaring up to him, daring him. 

He leaned close, let out a happy little sigh, and accepted the dare. She knew he would. They were just alike, after all. 

And she was really glad they had twenty minutes, instead of five, before anyone came looking for them. 

The End


End file.
